Hospitality Reimagined—Cleanliness Joins Wi-Fi as Top Amenity
COVID-19 delivered the hospitality industry a devastating blow when travel came to a screeching halt back in March. As vacations, business travel, and weddings were put on the backburner, hotels experienced an unprecedented disruption that shook the industry to its core. But hoteliers are a resilient bunch. They know that travel in a post-coronavirus world will require a rapid shift in priorities, and they have risen to the challenge. Foremost in their minds is making their hotels safe spaces for their guests. As they begin to turn the lights back on and welcome visitors once again, we’ll see new design strategies and technologies aimed at reassuring us that our health and safety are their top priority.
The Impact
So far, during the pandemic, US hotels have lost more than $31 billion in room revenue. The hospitality and leisure industry lost as many jobs as construction, government, manufacturing, retail, education, and health services combined. The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act is an essential first step in aiding the hotel industry. Single Digits has also supported our hotel customers with our 90-day COVID Relief Billing Program. Hotel owners and management are optimistic, and many have taken on deep cleaning, hefty maintenance, and improvement projects to take advantage of their empty properties.
One Thing We Know for Sure, Your Next Hotel Stay Will Be Your Cleanest
When hotels reopen, cleaning will be the top priority. Hotels will need to be transparent and share their safety and cleaning protocols with the public. Disaster seems to bring out the good in people, and we have seen many examples of people working together to help others during this pandemic. The hospitality industry will need to collaborate to help make travel safe again and begin to recover their financial losses. The AHLA (American Hotel & Lodging Association) has created Safe Stay, a common set of cleaning and safety practices for the industry. Many hotel brands are partnering with experts to develop their own set of guidelines as well. Hilton partnered with Lysol and the Mayo Clinic to create Hilton CleanStay with Lysol Protection—a new standard for hotel cleanliness from check-in to check-out. Marriott International created the Global Cleanliness Council which is developing new standards for its cleaning procedures.
At Single Digits we released our own set of Health and Hygiene Guidelines that we (and our partners) follow when visiting our customers and their properties. The safety of our customers and employees is our top concern—we even have guidelines on how our customers can work within ours. If we continue to work together, developing and adhering to high standards of cleanliness, it will allow guests to rest easy while also protecting hotel employees.
Travel Today: Staycations and Road Trips
As the process of reopening begins, hotels are preparing their properties, and many travelers are contemplating a staycation in their home state. Memorial Day weekend saw an increase in hotel stays in many locations; a seaside Best Western hotel in Oregon had 100% occupancy during the holiday weekend. Road trips are making a resurgence, and it seems people will put in the miles for a change in scenery; for instance, Arizona hotels saw a high percentage of Texas visitors over Memorial Day Weekend. With the perfect timing of summer vacation and states reopening, most of our hotel customers who took advantage of our 90-day COVID Relief Billing Program planned to reopen in June and catering to “local” travelers sounds like an excellent first step.