Coronavirus and Travel

Choice Hotels saw occasional bursts of profitability during the pandemic while competitors lost hundreds of millions of dollars. The company doesn’t plan to just stick to its reliable drive-to and leisure travel playbook, however. Expect more upscale hotel deals on the horizon.

Marriott's bigger portfolio in greater China than its competitors delivered the company somewhat of a financial win. But don't expect everything to return to normal on the rebound: Marriott learned how to run hotels with fewer employees during the crisis, and that's likely to be the new status quo.

There’s still a huge risk hosting larger scale exhibitions, but the organizer of Mobile World Congress is hoping to offset some of that by outsourcing travel management.

Nobody is anticipating any major financial windfall news from Marriott this week, but shareholders still want to hear where future growth is coming from during an investor update. All-inclusive resorts and home rentals, relatively new divisions of the company, will certainly be on the list.

Let's just say it's the lucky dozen.

No major surprises in this latest phase of international reopening, but serious questions over the U.S.'s absence.

Hotels were the bright spot in an otherwise disappointing jobs report, but there’s no time for a victory lap. Hiring has to maintain April’s strong momentum, at the very least, to meet summer demand. That’s a tall task in such a tight labor market.

The pandemic nosedive in business helped IHG accelerate its plan to cut a few bad apples from the Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza network. More trimming is likely to boost brand quality and — just as important — get back to 2019 levels of record growth.

Group business and convention bookings may be coming back to life, but we're years away from some of the world's largest hotels seeing regularly sold-out nights. Barry Sternlicht said it, in striking difference to some bullishness from his fellow travel execs this week.