Leisure Travel Comes Back First as Drive-To Rather than Fly-To: Pebblebrook Hotel Trust CEO

As the chief executive of one of the largest U.S. hotel ownership groups, Pebblebrook Hotel Trust CEO Jon Bortz has felt the dire coronavirus impact on travel demand. Pebblebrook has temporarily closed 46 of its 54 upscale hotels across the U.S., and its operators have furloughed most of the roughly 8,000 employees across Pebblebrook's entire hotel portfolio. Bortz went to the White House in March with a group of hotel executives that included Marriott International CEO Arne Sorenson and Hyatt Hotels CEO Mark Hoplamazian to appeal to the Trump administration for a $150 billion bailout for the industry while a stimulus bill was being drafted. While the resulting $2 trillion relief package will help hoteliers and their employees, Bortz thinks more is needed to navigate through a recovery he expects will take longer than initial forecasts predicted.

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Bortz was at the center of the $5.2 billion 2018 merger between Pebblebrook and LaSalle Hotel Properties, the lodging real estate investment trust he oversaw for 11 years. In an interview with Skift Tuesday, he outlined what steps are needed to move from survival to recovery and why a fourth piece of legislation is a necessity to bring the hotel industry back to its feet. Note: This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity. Skift: How much of a lift do you expect the $2 trillion CARES Act relief package will have on the overall hotel industry? Bortz: I think it’s helpful, but I also think it’s kind of a down payment. It was originally set up to cover a challenging period of about eight weeks, and this is obviously going to be a lot longer than that. We think it has some nice aspects to it. It helps small businesses and is done by property instead of by employer or major owner, so that gives operators the ability to apply for small business loans by individual property. The challenge is these properties in any major resort market shut down already. Employees were furloughed. The idea of bringing people back only to let them go after eight weeks because business isn’t there doesn’t make a lot of sense, and it doesn’t really cover a lot of other expenses.