Kevin King lives with his wife and three children outside of Buffalo, New York. He was hoping to get out of town for Labor Day before his oldest starts kindergarten on Wednesday.
“We looked at hotel prices, and hotel prices looked good, but we just couldn’t pull the trigger,” King said. “We didn’t feel comfortable in a hotel.”
He knows hotels are cleaning more and trying to limit contact between guests and employees, but they can only do so much.
“Hallways and elevators are the things that scared us the most. I’m not sure how you socially distance when someone’s coming down the hallway,” he said.
The American Hotel & Lodging Association released a report outlining the current state of the industry as the pandemic continues to depress demand.
Four in 10 hotel employees are still not working and two-thirds of hotels remain at less than 50% occupancy.
“All hotels lost, but the hotels that have done the least worst are those basic drive-in, drive-out, get-out-of-here hotels,” said Michael Noel, professor of economics at Texas Tech University.
There’s also a lot less business travel these days, so hotels aren’t getting that revenue, either.
Chip Rogers, CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, said hotel workers are paying the price.
“It’s those large urban centers with so many employees that are being hit the worst and with their occupancy levels down in the 30s in revenue drops of 70%,” Rogers said. “That’s why you’re seeing such massive job loss.”
One positive — if there is one right now for the hotel industry — is that if many people can work from anywhere, that means they can also work from hotels.
That’s the idea behind the new hotel booking platform HotelsByDay.
“We now have over 40 million new users that potentially could be using hotel rooms for the day,” said Yannis Moati, the company’s CEO.
The idea is to monetize every part of the hotel, so users can book a meeting room, a gym pass or even a spot at the pool for a day.
What’s going on with extra COVID-19 unemployment benefits?
It’s been weeks since President Donald Trump signed an executive memorandum that was supposed to get the federal government back into the business of topping up unemployment benefits, to $400 a week. Few states, however, are currently paying even part of the benefit that the president promised. And, it looks like, in most states, the maximum additional benefit unemployment recipients will be able to get is $300.
What’s the latest on evictions?
For millions of Americans, things are looking grim. Unemployment is high, and pandemic eviction moratoriums have expired in states across the country. And as many people already know, eviction is something that can haunt a person’s life for years. For instance, getting evicted can make it hard to rent again. And that can lead to spiraling poverty.
Which retailers are requiring that people wear masks when shopping? And how are they enforcing those rules?
Walmart, Target, Lowe’s, CVS, Home Depot, Costco — they all have policies that say shoppers are required to wear a mask. When an employee confronts a customer who refuses, the interaction can spin out of control, so many of these retailers are telling their workers to not enforce these mandates. But, just having them will actually get more people to wear masks.
You can find answers to more questions on unemployment benefits and COVID-19 here.
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September 08, 2020 at 03:22AM
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Hotel industry struggling during the pandemic - Marketplace
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