What lies beyond the pandemic? MassForward is MassLive’s series examining the journey of Massachusetts' businesses through and beyond the coronavirus pandemic.
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The vacant DCU Center acts as a daily reminder for employees at the Hilton Garden Inn in Worcester of just how the coronavirus has affected the hospitality industry.
The arena and convention center was expected to host about 190,000 people from July through December, according to Smith Travel Research. Extending back to March, the virus has canceled 212 events this year at the DCU wiping out 370,000 visitors to downtown Worcester.
Many of them would have stayed in the Hilton Garden Inn located across Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard from the DCU Center.
“We’ve taken a significant hit in the convention market and business in general, there are not a lot of people having conferences, not a lot of people are having meetings,” Director of Sales and Marketing at the Hilton Garden Inn Emily Mulhane said. “They want to see people in a virtual environment.”
Hotel occupancy is down 43% in Worcester and 38% in Worcester County, according to Discover Central Massachusetts. Revenue has dropped even more as hotel rates in the city have dropped by 17% and 19% in Central Massachusetts.
“The amount of rooms that are being sold is significantly down and the rate the customer is paying is significantly down,” executive director of Central Massachusetts Monique Messier said.
To dip into a potentially new client base, the Worcester Hilton Garden Inn debuted “Workspaces” by Hilton on Monday.
“We might not be looking for the person coming to the DCU Center,” Mulhane said “But we might be able to reach out to the workforce.”
The idea behind the spaces is to allow employees of offices that remain closed a place to work without distractions.
“It’s that peace of mind that you can go somewhere, you can get your work done and have a professional environment,” Mulhane said. “Everyone needs to work still, which can be difficult for the average mother or father who are working at home.”
The Hilton Garden Inn normally caters to business travelers, Mulhane said, so the rooms are already designed in a way that allows for an easy transition to an office.
The well-lit rooms include a desk, a chair and complimentary Wi-Fi. Hilton Honors Members will also earn points when they reserve a room. A reservation normally covers about an 8 or 9-hour time frame.
Hilton also introduced “Clean Stay” seals. Each room will have a “Clean Stay” seal on the door and other objects in the room ensuring no person has been in the room since it was last cleaned.
Hilton also announced it will be installing AtmosAir purification systems into each of its public HVAC spaces.
AtmosAir ionizes molecules that are pulled into a space from outside, which then disarm odors or other contaminants. The company said with its technology, coronavirus was reduced in a room by 99.62% within 30 minutes of exposure to its bi-polar ionization technology.
Then implementations come as the hotel industry is expected to lose more than 50% of its total revenue in 2020 or more than $120 billion, according to the United States Commercial Services and Smith Travel Research.
Through September, the hotel industry has lost more than 870,000 jobs because of the coronavirus, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
Within Massachusetts, the agency said 15,454 employees within the hotel industry lost their jobs and 603 hotels are at risk of permanently closing.
As the pandemic lingers into the fall and beyond, hotels like the Hilton Garden Inn in Worcester have enjoyed some positive signs of a rebound, though.
Organizations like the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism and Discover Central Massachusetts have launched campaigns that focus on residents remaining local to account for the dip in out-of-state visitors.
Discover Central Massachusetts created the “Pumpkin Passport” to remind people living in Worcester County of all the fall activities occurring. The Pumpkin Passport grows daily with activities from pumpkin patches in Douglas, pumpkin carving in Barre and craft class in Worcester.
Mulhane said even wedding bookings at the Hilton Garden Inn have also started to slowly resume. Guests are arriving for a small wedding this weekend as some couples are moving forward under state guidelines. Others are postponing until 2021.
“They’re not canceling, but just postponing,” Mulhane said.
Focusing on staying local provides a different set of challenges for hotels.
Most businesses were forced to pivot during the pandemic. Restaurants have expanded outdoor seating. Breweries have shifted to more distributions in stores. Gyms have offered virtual training sessions.
Those industries provided similar services to returning clientele. Hotels, thought, are trying to dip into a local audience to use a product originally created for out-of-town visitors.
“We are seeing some really nice pick up in the leisure market,” Mulhane said. “We are seeing some people who are looking for the staycation. They’re from the area but they want to get out of their house.”
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