The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) has issued a midyear report on the shape of the industry and key among the findings is that the pandemic has wiped out 10 years of job growth in the industry. The report paints an overall picture of an industry that has been badly hurt in other ways by Covid.
Key findings include:
- Nearly 500,000 hotel jobs will be lost by the end of the year;
- There has been a nearly $44 billion decline in room revenues compared with 2019;
- States and localities have lost $20 billion in state and local tax revenues since 2019;
- There has been a 10% drop in average hotel occupancy since 2019.
The AHLA said that in 2019, U.S. hotels directly employed more than 2.3 million people. They are expected to end 2021 with 1.86 million employees, down nearly 500,000 or 20% from 2019 levels. Recovery to 2019 employment is not expected until at least 2023.
In New York state, according to the AHLA, there were 116,106 people employed in hotel jobs directly associated with running the properties and not in restaurants, retail attractions hotel suppliers and similar categories. The pandemic cut that to 69,088.
In Connecticut, the 26,225 hotel jobs before the pandemic had dropped to 16,560 in 2020.
The report states that hotel occupancy for 2021 is expected to average 55.9%, which would be up slightly from earlier projections of 52.5% but still a 10% drop from 2019 levels.
Before the pandemic, hotels were generating more than $169 billion in annual room revenues, according to the association. During 2020, that plummeted to $85.5 billion. It is expected to partially rebound this year, but only to $125.3 billion
Chip Rogers, the president and CEO of AHLA, said, “Despite an uptick in leisure travel, midway through 2021 we”™re still seeing that the road to a full recovery for America”™s hotels is long and uneven.
“These findings show the economic devastation still facing hotel markets and underscore the need for targeted relief from Congress for hotel workers and small businesses.”
