PRELIMINARY FINDINGS ARE IN!
Professors Sheryl Kimes and Dave Roberts report that they have over 300 respondents from 53 countries so far. Some things that stand out are (1) about 2/3 have had a price war in their market, (2) about half think that even with the vaccine, it's going to take over a year before their market returns to pre-Covid levels and (3) 75% report that there has been increased cooperation and coordination among the various departments at their hotel.
THERE'S STILL TIME TO PARTICIPATE
The survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete, responses will be kept confidential, and results will be shared upon completion of the study.
U.S. hotel occupancy slipped one point to 57.9% for the week ending March 27. Week-over-week decreases were most noticeable in Texas and Florida markets, which is indicative of softening in the spring break demand that had boosted levels in recent weeks. Regardless, U.S. weekend occupancy (71.1%) remained solid when indexed to 2019 levels.
Amid further economic reopening and higher travel volume, just 2% of U.S. hotel supply remained offline in March. Closures were a lot less prevalent in Europe during the recent lockdown, but countries like the U.K., Spain, Italy, Germany, and France are not forecasted to reach a similar percentage of open inventory until the summer.
