Travel Megatrends 2021: Hotels Are Back With Big Upsides for Owners That Stuck Out the Hard Times
Nadia Sgaramella
Skift Take
Corporate travel planners and event bookers hold the key to the financial fate for much of the hotel industry. But struggling hotel owners who made it to the other side of the pandemic were likely to see greater profits because of supply constraints and many weaker competitors succumbed.
The hotel industry is back in 2025, but it looks considerably different than it did five years earlier. There is no doubt the pandemic brutally ravaged the sector. Hotel portfolios in large, urban centers or those focused on meetings and events may not have shuttered for good — but they certainly traded hands. Owners and investors who lacked the resources or had no stomach for the turbulence of an extended recovery period, got out early in 2020 and 2021, but those who persisted were in store for a significant upside.
“There’s going to be an opportunistic play for someone willing to carry those hotels for the next year or two,” Acres Capital CEO Mark Fogel told Skift in 2020.
As seen in the chart on the right, U.S. hotel occupancy and average daily rates were severely impacted in 2020. But on the owner side, the recovery’s slog paid off for some. Years of cost cuts, including streamlining operations and
