LONDON, Ky. (WYMT) - In a year that halted travel, London hotel owner Randy Singh says business in 2020 has been slow.
“We’re coming to work every day. People are coming. It’s just not that busy compared to what we used to be,” said Singh.
Singh owns both the Baymont Inn and Suites and Microtel Inn and Suites in London. He says in 2020 he saw occupancy drop 40% at the Microtel.
“We’re decreased about $355,000 compared to what it was last year. At the end money is still coming in but at the end a lot of stuff has stopped,” said Singh.
In 2019, Singh rented out about 14,000 rooms at the Microtel. In 2020, he rented out about 8,600.
“You have a 77 room hotel and you’re only renting 10 rooms that’s not going to make it but at the end if it wasn’t for those summer months to help pad us out you know it kind of extended our life line and of course we had help from the banks and stuff like that,” said Singh.
He says he has lost a lot of travelers from Canada and Michigan as they are not going to Florida for the winter.
“205 rooms at the Microtel that were Canadian travelers. Doesn’t sound like a lot but if you compare it to 2020 because they closed borders right at March we had six,” he said.
During the summer, the hotels did fill up as people enjoyed outdoor activities across the region but as fall and winter approached, business plummeted.
“Every hotel on I-75 in October at the end of the night is normally at 100% occupancy just because there’s so much demand and there’s so many events going on and if you compare what it was this year to last year you can really see the effect,” said Singh.
With money from the CARES Act, Singh has been able to stay in business and pay his employees with money from the Paycheck Protection Program.
He says this second stimulus bill will help him through the slow winter months.
“Normally in a hotel you expect the hotel to always be upgrading as time goes but right now it’s just keeping the doors open, keeping the lights on and paying our bills because at the end we still have mortgage to pay we still have employees to pay,” said Singh.
Singh says during the winter holiday season, they usually stay around 10% occupancy. This year with the Christmas Eve snow storm, they were about 30% full as the roads were too bad to travel on.
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January 01, 2021 at 05:44AM
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London hotel owner sees 40% drop in occupancy in 2020 - WYMT
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