Hotels Offer Discounted Gift Card Deals to Raise Cash – Will It Work?
Skift Take
"Buy now, pay later" programs can deliver quick capital to struggling hoteliers, but operators need to remember the discounts will inevitably impact balance sheets.
Small hotel owners can’t afford to wait on the government to dig out from decimated travel demand.
Many hotel operators qualified for the $350 billion paycheck protection program under the $2 trillion coronavirus relief fund passed in late March. But the depleted program, even with a $320 billion replenishment signed into law on Friday, isn’t a reliable stream of income for cash-strapped hoteliers.
Small businesses have been shut out of the program due to technical issues or difficulty in finding a lender to process their application. While hoteliers wait for word from the bank, some have to find creative solutions to pay down debt.
“We’re holding off on paying some bills until our PPP loan comes in,” upstate New York hotelier Gregory Henderson said. “Everything is a juggle right now.”
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Henderson and his husband Joseph Massa co-own the popular Roxbury Motel in Roxbury, New York. The boutique hotel in the Catskills draws visitors from New York City and beyond to its contemporary rooms as well as those themed for throwback television shows like The Flintstones and Bewitched. Given their success and several expansions to the Roxbury, Henderson and Massa spent five years building up the road their second hotel, the Roxbu