The hospitality industry is slowly seeing a return to normal volume this summer, according to industry officials, but the strength of this recovery will depend on the location of hotel properties and the markets that are its core business.
Connecticut hotel properties aimed at leisure and leisure travelers, particularly along the coast, see “some strength (in the demand for reservations),” said Stephen Tagliatela, managing partner of Saybrook Point Resort and Marina in Old Saybrook and president of the Connecticut Tourism Coalition.
“Catering events, as well as weddings and bar mitzvahs, take time to come back,” Tagliatela said.
Jeff Hamilton, President and General Manager of Mohegan Sun Casino and Resort in Montville, said throughout the spring, “Our bookings have continued to improve.”
“April was better than March and May was better than April. June looks better too, ”said Hamilton.
Many of those who booked rooms at the Mohegan Sun this spring, said Hamilton, were “stay-cation customers” – consumers within a day’s drive of the resort who wanted to travel but didn’t fly felt comfortable.
Still, other segments of the Connecticut hotel marketplace are decidedly less busy.
“Urban real estate and real estate that relies on business travel is suffering,” said Tagliatela. “The corporate business has not recovered; it’s about a third of what it was before the pandemic. “
The next few months will be a critical time to see if business travel will recover, said Jan Jones, professor of hospitality and tourism at the University of New Haven’s Pompea College of Business.
“We’ll see who is backing business travel in the next few months,” said Jones. “Technologies like Zoom are effective in some cases, but I have a feeling that some of these big conferences will return because companies see the value of social interaction.”
A recent survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association found that the majority of industry participants from across the country do not expect business travel to return to pre-pandemic levels until 2023 or 2024. according to the survey.
Hotels in metropolitan areas are particularly hard hit, according to the retail group’s survey. City hotels recorded a 66 percent year-on-year decline in room income in January.
This number does not include the lost group, meeting, and food and drink revenue, which is a primary reason for doing business in these markets.
New York hotels were particularly hard hit. A third of the city’s hotel rooms, 42,030, were wiped out by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the trading group. Almost 200 hotels are closing permanently in the city.
Even if business trips are noticeable, the recovery process for hotels is somewhat hampered by a shortage of manpower and materials.
Hamilton said Mohegan Sun’s traditional high season for business travel and events is fall and spring, so he hopes some of that will return in the last three or four months. Business travelers make up about 20 percent of the resort’s annual hotel revenue, he said.
Hamilton said getting enough team members is the biggest barrier to operations as the demand for reservations continues to grow.
“We have 30 to 40 vacancies at the hotel and we need to hire over 200 people across the resort,” he said. “Part of it (the labor shortage) is the convenience of getting back to work. But the extra unemployment benefits hurt us and I think childcare is a bit of a problem too. “
According to Tagliatela, the workforce at Saybrook Point Resort and Marina is up to 15 percent lower than it was before the pandemic began. But the labor shortage isn’t the only thing making the resort difficult to operate as the demand for reservations grows, he said.
“Our biggest challenge is the supply chain,” said Tagliatela. “Everything is hard to come by. There are barriers to almost anything you want to buy. “
Supply chain gaps are hindering new hotel construction in the state, said Ginny Kozlowski, executive director of the Connecticut Lodging Association.
“They all have problems getting material,” said Kozlowski. As a result, she said that construction, which may have been in full swing by now, has not even started,
“We’re seeing some construction at the Hilton Garden Inn on Elm Street in New Haven and the Hampton Inn in North Haven on Universal Drive (across from BJ’s Wholesale Club),” said Kozlowski.
Some hotel construction projects are progressing despite the challenges. “We are seeing a lot of construction work there because of the many activities around the airport (Bradley International) in relation to the logistics facilities,” said Kozlowski.
One example is Cambria Hotels, one of Choice Hotels International’s upscale accommodation brands. Connecticut’s first Cambria Hotels location is under construction in South Windsor at 1000 Long Leaf Lane.
Cambria Hotels will also open a second Connecticut location at 20 Dwight Street in New Haven next summer.
luther.turmelle@hearstmediat.com
