Source: Hotel News Now
By Jan Freitag
April 8, 2020
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is currently ravaging throughout the U.S., with one in four cases in the world diagnosed here. However, as hotel performance metrics in China clearly show, the impact of COVID-19 is finite.
It may not feel that way right now or in the coming weeks, but we can clearly see that Chinese hotel occupancies are slowly recovering. We take comfort in this fact and know that the industry will survive. Despite being battered and bruised, and with much to mourn and much loss to digest, the hotel industry will go on as consumers hit the road again. This will first occur slowly, then in ever-increasing numbers.
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In sum: This too shall pass
STR’s current U.S. revenue per available room forecast for 2020 stands at -50%, with a sharp rebound of +63% expected in 2021. These numbers are in flux, but the tenor of the prognostications is clear: this is temporary disruption. Severe, yes. Deadly, yes. But nonetheless temporary. With that in mind, it is not too hard to imagine recovery scenarios that will point at prolonged, slowed growth for the U.S. hotel industry.
