Hospitality

Conventions and trade shows are back in a big way — but the crowd of attendees is smaller.

People are buying more business-class airfares — but companies continue to limit their employees’ travel.

Business travel within the United States is picking up steam — but international business travel may not recover fully until 2026.

The upshot: Work-related travel is bouncing back from its COVID hiatus, but the hospitality industry shouldn’t expect things to be exactly the same. What can hotel operators do to win back the business traveler?

Of all the aspects of hospitality lost to COVID, the hotel bar was missed more keenly than most (second only, maybe, to the breakfast buffet). The bar is a uniquely convivial experience: a place to sit shoulder to shoulder with fellow guests and savor the experience of being somewhere unfamiliar but welcoming.

People want that opportunity to socialize again. That’s why it’s time to reinvest in the hotel bar and end any limitations on food and beverage services, hospitality experts say.

“International travelers want a great bar experience in particular,” Sloan Dean, CEO and president of third-party management company Remington Hotels, said at the NYU International Hospitality Industry Investment Conference. “Often they stay and dine in the hotel, whereas domestic travelers often don’t. So we need our food-and-beverage really dialed in.”

Here's a look at some hotel bar trends and opportunities to maximize revenue and guest satisfaction.

Clean. Streamlined. Efficient. These are the hallmarks of pandemic-driven hotel guestroom design.

“As designers, we are being mindful of choosing items that are durable and easy to sanitize,” Lisa Rapp, hospitality principal at the Hawaiian architecture firm AHL, tells Travel Weekly. “Design is leaning toward clean lines and less clutter. Things like room service menus and brochures are being removed.”

Decluttered is one thing… but guests don’t want their rooms to be empty. Certain guestroom amenities are essential for comfort and convenience. Which ones do you need? And where should you put them?

Quick quiz: Which hospitality segment saw the highest occupancy rates in 2021?

Chic city hotels? Urban hotels — particularly those reliant on group travel — had 2021 occupancy rates that were lower than in 2019.

What about upscale vacation properties? Resort occupancy was around 60% and luxury occupancy was 52%, said Jan D. Freitag, National Director of Hospitality Market Analytics for CoStar Group. This represents a 12%-13% increase, respectively, over 2019.

The real winner has been extended-stay hotels, with an average occupancy rate of 73% in 2021. “Given reaccelerating business demand and continued strong leisure travel, expectations are that extended stay hotels will continue to outperform, with further occupancy and rate acceleration and continued strong investor demand,” Freitag wrote.

Michael G. Medzigian, Chairman and CEO of Watermark Lodging Trust Inc., remembers the absolute devastation wreaked on the hotel business in 2020. His April occupancy rate plunged from 76% to 4%. His company furloughed 10,000 people and lost around $50 million in cash in the first month.  

It “took unimaginable effort to get to where we are now,” he said in The View for 2022: Insights and Expectations for the U.S. Hotel Industry, a recent webinar hosted by the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration. And the journey’s not over: While Medzigian is generally optimistic, he sees more challenges piling on now than he’s ever seen before.

We distill four of the key insights he and other hospitality professionals shared in the webinar, to guide hotels through an encouraging but tumultuous year.

Check out our most popular content for the year on the Hospitality blog -- here is your recap of our top posts from Hamilton Beach Commercial®.  

Read on...and if you see content you like, be sure to join the HBC Community for regular updates, whether it's Beverage, Food, Hospitality or Recipes.

“Expectations are resentments under construction,” said writer Anne Lamott. That’s especially true in the hotel industry right now, as staffing shortages force cuts in services.  

• Guests expect a full free breakfast… and they get yogurt and a granola bar.
• Guests expect sparkling clean rooms… and they see hasty housekeeping.
• Guests expect to enjoy hotel amenities… and they discover the gym is closed and cocktail hour is canceled.

Guests were willing to lower their expectations for a while, Carolyne Doyon, Club Med’s president and CEO for North America and the Caribbean, said at the recent Caribbean Hotel & Resort Investment Summit. "You know, little things that would have bothered them pre-pandemic, they were accepting. But as we are moving forward, we're back to pre-pandemic expectations” — which can be hard to meet.

In the face of widespread labor shortages, how can you improve satisfaction and prevent disappointment (and, yes, resentment) in hotel guests?

Hotel guest satisfaction is holding steady overall, the 2021 J.D. Power North America Hotel Guest Satisfaction Index Study found. But guests have one big criticism: They miss breakfast. 

More than a third of hotels eliminated buffet breakfasts from May 2020 to June 2021, the study found. Satisfaction with breakfast offerings dropped across the board (except in the economy segment, which rarely offered hot breakfast pre-pandemic.)

"It is clear that guests expect breakfast service to resume, especially in limited-service hotels that usually provide complimentary hot breakfast," said J.D. Power hospitality practice lead Andrea Stokes. Labor shortages, food costs and COVID concerns can make this a challenge, however.

What’s the best hotel breakfast to keep costs down and satisfaction levels up? Here are some innovative approaches.

For a while, hotel operators focused intensely on reducing single-use plastics. Travelers, eyes open to the devastating impact of plastic trash on oceans and beaches, demanded more sustainable options. Governments imposed restrictions on plastics, including the EU’s ban on certain single-use plastic items and California’s ban on small plastic toiletry bottles (New York has since followed suit).  

The COVID-19 pandemic paused these efforts, but also forced a shift in thinking. While plastic use remains a problem, climate change has been thrust into the forefront — and for hospitality professionals, addressing it is no longer optional.

The Cornell University School of Hotel Administration recently hosted a roundtable, “Sustainability in the Hospitality Industry: Challenges and Opportunities,” with some leaders in the field. Here are some key takeaways.

A drink at the hotel bar. A lavish breakfast buffet. A perfectly planned wedding reception. A romantic dinner at the lobby restaurant.

Hotel guests worldwide had to give up these pleasures in 2020… and hotels felt the pain. Now, hotel operators are getting creative about F&B to win back their guests.

“The perceived value goes beyond portion size,” writes Matt Rinehart, Vice President of Food & Beverage, HRI Lodging in Lodging magazine. “Guests will measure value through the delivery of a thoughtful dining experience or to-go order that is consistent, guest-focused, and detail-driven.”

Here are four ways hotels are delivering just that.