As the hospitality world grapples with the immediate and imminent effects of coronavirus (COVID-19), we here at HD are adjusting our weekly Five to deliver the latest headlines and information to our community.
The cancellation of the 2020 HD Expo, the toll the pandemic is having on the travel and hotel industries, and even a slight silver lining. All this and more in this week’s Five.
Hotel industry seeks bailout
Hotel executives are requesting a $250 billion bailout for owners, employees, and suppliers, reports USA Today. In a meeting with the Trump administration on Tuesday, the hotel industry explained the severe impact travel bans are having on business. Hotel occupancy has fallen drastically—below 20 percent in cities including Seattle, San Francisco, Austin, and Boston. The detailed plan would allot $150 billion to hotel owners to make loan payments and support laid-off employees, while $100 billion would be distributed to recreational providers and retail suppliers.
HD Expo + Conference cancels May event
In a statement released yesterday, the HD Expo + Conference team announced the cancellation of its forthcoming show, originally set to take place May 5-7th, 2020 at Mandalay Bay Las Vegas. The 2021 show is schedule for May 4-6th, 2021 at the same location.
“Driven by our responsibility to ensure the best interests of our hospitality design community, we have made the difficult decision to cancel HD Expo + Conference for 2020,” reads a portion of the statement. “We hope you will join us for the next HD Expo + Conference, scheduled for May 4-6th, 2021, where we will pull our great community together again and finally unveil the reimagined show we have been working on for the past year.” Have questions? Read the FAQ.
Additionally, the International Contemporary Furniture Fair (ICFF), which was scheduled for May 17–20th, 2020 at the Javits Center in New York, has been cancelled. The organizers of NYCxDesign have suspended the May festival and will present programming in October.
Direct impact on hotel employees
The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) is estimating that close to 4 million U.S. hotel jobs—or nearly half of all hotel jobs in the country—could be eliminated over the next few weeks, reports Business Insider. The pandemic “already has had a more severe impact on the hotel industry than 9/11 and the 2008 recession combined,” said AHLA CEO Chip Rogers in a release. (Marriott CEO Arne Sorenson echoed a similar sentiment in an emotional video released Thursday.)
Implications to travel sector
According to a new report by Oxford Economics for the U.S. Travel Association, the disruption to travel will translate into an economic loss of $809 million. (This is six times more than the impact 9/11 had on the travel industry.) It is also predicted that 4.6 million travel-related jobs in the United States will be eliminated this year.
“The health crisis has rightly occupied the public’s and government’s attention, but a resulting catastrophe for employers and employees is already here and going to get worse,” said U.S. Travel Association president and CEO Roger Dow. “Travel-related businesses employ 15.8 million Americans, and if they can’t afford to keep their lights on, they can’t afford to keep paying their employees. Without aggressive and immediate disaster relief steps, the recovery phase is going to be much longer and more difficult, and the lower rungs of the economic ladder are going to feel the worst of it.” Dow also noted that 83 percent of travel employers are small businesses, Lodging magazine reports.
On a lighter note…
A recently created Instagram account, @socialdistancegallery, is giving art students’ cancelled BFA and MFA thesis shows the opportunity to shine—in a different way. Created by painter Benjamin Cook, the account is an alternate way for students to exhibit their hard work and, at press time, it has racked up more that 16,000 followers. “Students are reaching out and sounding really excited about this project, and that has done a lot to keep me going,” Cook, who is an adjunct professor at the Art Academy of Cincinnati, told ArtNews. “There’s a lot no one was prepared for, and it’s going to be a lot of experimentation. I hope this will take some things off people’s plates so we can focus on the education side of things because the school year is really not over. We have to figure out so much more.”
