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COVID Briefs: Remote work winners | NYC rooms wiped out

‘Remote work’ mentions triple for Hilton, Accor: Work-from-home policies impacted business meetings at hotels in 2020, yet some lodging companies have seen it as an opportunity to focus on newer and safer hybrid meeting solutions. GlobalData’s filing analytics platform found that Hilton and Accor Hotels, for example, had more mentions of “remote work” and related keywords in their company filings than other hotel chains. With remote work still prevalent in 2021, Hilton’s strategies – which included programs for remote workers alongside a tightening of “safe” meeting spaces – aim to meet demand for online video conferencing events. Notably, Hilton’s mentions around “remote work” tripled in its 2020 filings over 2019, with discussions around the these keywords more than tripled in the same period for Accor.

One-third of NYC rooms have been wiped out: New data released by the New York CIty Department of City Planning showed 146 of the city’s 705 hotels have closed — or 20%. The closures account for 42,030 or one-third of the city’s 128,000 hotel rooms. The hotel industry won’t fully recover to pre-pandemic levels until 2025, the analysis said.

More from the New York Post

UK to unveil hotel quarantine plans: Britain is on the verge of announcing whether it will bring in mandatory quarantine in hotels for some or all arrivals, the country’s coronavirus vaccination minister said as he warned the public not to book summer vacations. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said he was looking at the option of introducing quarantine hotels for those coming to Britain to prevent the risk of “vaccine-busting” new coronavirus variants entering the country.

More from Reuters

Hope and despair in European: In Vienna, a recent protest dubbed “Five minutes to twelve” was organized to highlight how close many such businesses are to collapse. But the sentiment extends all over Europe. In Geneva, Laurent Terlinchamp, president of the Swiss city’s hospitality industry association, sketches out the dire situation the industry finds itself in. “We wait for help which never comes, promises which are never kept, and the little help which does arrive is trivial,” he says.

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Mapping the recovery: The COVID-19 pandemic caused total disruption in the travel industry. Hotel occupancies in Europe dropped 90% in May compared with the same period a year earlier, and average daily room rates in the Asia Pacific region decreased 40%. The aviation sector struggled to survive, with 80% of flights canceled. Now the picture is diverging: even as some countries experience their highest caseloads ever, China posted record travel numbers for the October National Day holiday. Against this backdrop, leaders from across the travel industry came together at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum last November to share insights and discuss the path forward for travel and its millions of related jobs.

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Ukraine: Hotel market sentiment survey: The first hotel market sentiment survey conducted in Ukraine as the combined efforts of the Ukrainian Hotel & Resort Association and Horwath HTL Hungary. The report gives an overview on how much the local hotel industry has been impacted by COVID-19 and what local hoteliers believe the future holds.

Read the full report

Now industry knows what it’s up against: According to HotStats, the end of 2020 is not the end of the problems for the global hotel industry, but it does bring hope on the wings of a vaccine that, in time, could be a panacea for what ails it: fear. The hotel industry does not perform well without its most significant ingredient: people. The pandemic has removed that element. In its place sit unused guest rooms, vacant restaurants and empty conference and meeting spaces. It’s a recipe for disaster, which is exactly what was concocted last year. But the close of the calendar doesn’t automatically mean a brighter 2021. It will still take time.

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