By Steve Van, president & CEO, Prism Hotels & Resorts While 2020 was a trying year for companies in every industry, the hospitality sector has been really taking it on the chin. Restaurateurs and airline executives might disagree, but hoteliers have arguably had it worse than any other industry. The financial impact on the hotel business from COVID-19 is 10 times worse than the hit from the late 2000s recession — and that’s a very big deal. With the rate of business travel falling off a cliff and leisure travel down more than ever around the world, 2020 was a year that many hospitality executives would like to forget. But that doesn’t mean the sky is falling — or that brighter times aren’t in store. But what do those timelines look like? How should hotel professionals be managing the current crisis, and what are the real estate implications for investors? Let’s take a clear-eyed look at the good, the bad and the ugly and try and answer those questions by examining key trends and thinking about what’s likely to come next for hotel developers, operators and investors. Southern Sunshine One important caveat to the story of catastrophic hotel business drop-offs …
