Hotel Industry CEOs See Strong Business Travel Recovery
Leaders rebuke naysayers at NYU hospitality investment conference >>
by: Harvey Chipkin
Hotel industry CEOs at the NYU Hospitality Industry and Investment Conference in New York voiced strong opinions about a full recovery for business travel. Mark Hoplamazian, CEO of Hyatt, said that Bill Gates’ prediction early in the pandemic that most companies would see a permanent 50% decline in business travel “has already been proven wrong.” In the end, he said, business travel would recover as a percentage of total business to within single digits of what it was in 2019. He said business travel hasn’t declined — “it just looks different.” The industry has not done a good job, said Hoplamazian, of tracking business travel. For instance, Friday check-ins are often counted as leisure, although that is not necessarily the case. He said that eventually the totality of business travel will be higher than in 2019 because the global economy is growing, and with that comes mobility. Christopher Nassetta, CEO of Hilton, said that pundits early in the pandemic said there would be less business travel mobility because of the crisis. In fact, he said, it will be a more mobile world. If workers don’t go back to the office, he said, they will be even more mobile so they can meet and do business. And Sébastien Bazin, CEO of Accor, said hotels would see tremendous revenues from nonguests as people seek a place to work and relax if they are working remotely.
In his speech opening the conference, Jonathan Tisch, CEO of Loews Hotels and the conference chair, said a business travel recovery starts with acknowledging that “the lines between work, travel and leisure have permanently blurred.” Workers who don’t have an office or a water cooler anymore, he said, can find one in Miami, or Philadelphia, or Asheville. The same, said Tisch, goes for traditional business travelers. With hybrid schedules and generous work-from-home policies, there’s no reason to rush home just because your meeting is over. Meanwhile, he said, “we can’t overlook the opportunity right in our own backyards.” And, Tisch said, that presents a unique chance for the industry to reimagine its offerings, to make them attractive to every kind of business traveler — whether it’s the local who comes to a hotel to work for one day, or the digital nomad who comes to work for weeks on end. How do we design our rooms and public spaces, he asked, to accommodate today’s guests? The industry, said Tisch, needs to keep making its case and “remind people what it’s like to network at conferences like this one … or talk to clients in person … or exchange ideas at morning spin class … or check emails poolside. And we need to keep reimagining the future of work, with travel and tourism at the center of it.”
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