The theme of summer 2021 is ‘revenge travel’. With the vaccination percentage increasing every week, guest confidence is soon to follow. And once we attain herd immunity (at least here in North America), all that pent-up demand for travel from a year or more in lockdown will result in an explosion for vacation accommodations (group and corporate guests will come back later).
While it would be fantastic to witness a rapid uptick in occupancy to bring a property back to healthy revenue numbers, it’s still a ‘good problem to have’. More guests mean more service which in turn requires more staff. Additionally, higher occupancy can result in more crowds around the lobby and a reduced ability to properly maintain physical distancing safety mandates.
To dwell a bit more on the issue of staffing, while we know that guests will return, we can’t predict when this surge will come for each specific hotel market. In such an ambiguous recovery scenario, it’s hard to staff up in advance as this would represent a significant cost without the certainty of forecasted revenue to justify it.
