Originally published on DetroitNews.com by Audrey Laurent and Sergio Maclean on March 18, 2021
“Just recently, the Biden administration made the declaration that all adults will be eligible for a vaccine by May 1, with the goal of all Americans being vaccinated by this summer. As the COVID-19 vaccine rolls out nationwide, it’s serving as a travel stimulator. According to a recent study by Destination Analysts, 37.8% of Americans have begun planning or booking future travel in anticipation of the vaccine — which is up nearly 10% in just the last three months.
As more and more people get vaccinated, the hospitality industry will soon see a boom unlike anything we’ve seen before.
Hospitality suffered greatly in 2020: Research done by the U.S. Travel Association showed that the pandemic resulted in $492 billion in cumulative losses for the U.S. travel economy from March 2020 through the end of the year. Moreover, hotel occu- pancy averaged just 44% in 2020 — an all-time low.
As an industry standard, hotels around the country — and even the world — had to pivot their business model entirely. Across the board, hotels had to close their doors at the drop of a hat — a move no one expected to happen.
After the initial shutdown, we made safety our priority.
From a purely technical standpoint, we installed a temperature checking system for all guests, we supplied masks and gloves and provided complimentary wellness kits with masks, sanitizing wipes, vitamins and more. We sprayed every inch of the guest rooms and social spaces with disinfectant, among so many other safety measures.
Because our team’s safety and confidence were of the utmost importance to us, we made sure all the necessary equipment, training and infrastructure were in place to keep them safe. We modified schedules to avoid large groups, the staff meals were individually made and wrapped for every team member. We posted every CDC, WHO and state policy update and brought a doctor whenever necessary to give virtual town hall meetings and answer any questions.
In addition to daily screenings, we also brought in a medical team weekly to test all the staff free of charge, so we could instill confidence in our staff that they were safe with us.
As we await international travel to come back, we are focused on our domestic clientele. In fact, more than 94% of our guests have been from the United States. According to Arrivalist’s Daily Travel Index, road travel recovered most of its losses last year after seeing a drastic decline in March and April, and we’ve seen a large percentage of our guests coming from drive-to markets.
Within a few short weeks from opening bookings back again in July 2020, the entire hotel sold out within the parameters of the allocated occupancy levels we had set for safety. Demand on weekends often surpassed our expectations and availability, a trend that we’ve seen repeated month after month.
Like so many others in the hospitality community, we evolved with the landscape and stayed optimistic about travel. As an independent boutique hotel operator in the heart of downtown Detroit, we had to be creative about repositioning what our offering would look like and the experience as a whole.
We encouraged guests to shop local at Detroit’s pop-up retail experience in Parker’s Alley, experience Decked Out Detroit with the Monroe Street Drive-In or go ice skating at Campus Martius. We focused on the human experience.
Even as the vaccine rolls out over the next six months, precautions will continue to be set in place across the hospitality industry, but we, like all of our industry peers, have pivoted our business model in a way that prepares us and protects us for another crisis.
We’ve proven this model to be successful and look forward to welcoming our guests — both international and domestically — as we return to what is now our new normal.
Audrey Laurent and Sergio Maclean have over three decades of combined experience in the hospitality industry. The husband and wife duo are behind Mac&Lo Hospitality, a full-service consulting, development and management company for hotel and restaurant operations.”