Hotel CEOs Avoid Facing Reality About the Delta Variant
Photo Credit: Hotel CEOs remained largely optimistic on earnings calls about the months ahead, despite swelling negative impact from the Delta variant. Flickr / Navy Medicine
Skift Take
Major hotel companies don’t want to ruffle any investor feathers at a time when profitability is just returning and labor remains fragile. But it’s better to be honest — and prepared — about what the next few months could look like with new strains of the virus and deploy a new recovery strategy.
The chief executives of some of the world’s largest hotel companies in recent weeks largely downplayed the potential impact the Delta variant could have on fall business — even as tangible, negative signs wave on the horizon.
Hotel companies need corporate travel and group travel and events to kick in this fall to offset an expected decline in leisure travel stemming from students returning to in-person learning at school. Major companies like Amazon, the Coca-Cola Co., and Google have pushed back their return to the office — and presumably the accompanying travel that goes with it — to later in the year or even into 2022.
Hilton’s CEO Christopher Nassetta maintained a public face of optimism on earnings calls over the last few weeks, despite the highly contagious strain heavily impacting what has been some of the industry’s best-performing markets during the pandemic and threatening a previously anticipated fall return of business travel.
Major events like New Orl
