The Hotel in the Age of Covid
IT was 7.30 pm on a recent Tuesday at a chain-affiliated hotel in midtown Manhattan. A 74-year-old lady, a guest, was by the front desk with the check-in agent, standing too close for comfort. She was behind the front desk, beside the agent, Raquel, and not in front of the Covid plexiglass barrier. She had two small hairy dogs in a stroller, alongside her hand luggage. The old lady had been in the lobby for almost half an hour.
The hotel only allowed guests to check in with one dog.
Raquel’s boss, the hotel manager, had told her to check in the old lady regardless — this time, they were willing to turn a blind eye to the second dog.
When the old lady went into the room she had booked, she said she didn’t like it and wanted a different one. Raquel was not unfazed; this is not an unusual request from guests, especially in a hotel in New York. Two guests from France who had checked in that day told Raquel they did not want a room where the vibration and noise from New York City cars could be heard. They were on a business trip, and they were going to be working remotely from the hotel. Although they did not pay for a two-bedroom suite, they also wanted to be sure their single-bedroom suite had a wall barrier between the living room and bedroom because they would be working over Zoom and didn’t want to hear one another. Raquel changed their suite for them. Rooms are rarely identical in a hotel. Often, they are situated differently — across the lobby, next to a lift, facing the road, on a high floor, next to the terrace, etc. Hotel rooms can also be oriented differently — to honor smoking or non-smoking preferences, or keep noisy guests like families, or groups of college students isolated from guests who might complain about the noise. Typically, the further up the suites, you went, the quieter it would be. Raquel at the front desk did the zoning of guests across the hotel’s 34 apartment-style suites, labelled A to D. Rooms A and B were two-bedroom suites, while C and D were one-bedroom suites.
So, the old lady had her preferences too. She wanted a suite on a higher floor.
Raquel checked the front desk hotel management software on her computer for room availability and reservation status. On it, she could see a list of due arrivals and departures for the day that the software generated for her. Then, she could access the housekeeping segment for reports verifying the room had been cleaned. Raquel changed the old lady’s room.
Up the elevator, the old lady went. And down she returned. The room was not made. Raquel had not known this; she had selected an unprepared room on the software, which means though the former guest in the room had departed, she missed the housekeeping report. She apologized to the old lady, and she called the cleaning staff, reminding them to tidy it up.
The old lady said she wanted to leave and cancel her reservation. “No problem,” Raquel said. “We won’t charge you,” Raquel told her to call the third-party booking agent she used so that she could get a refund.
That took another 30 minutes. The old lady was unable to reach the booking agent, and she also sought Raquel’s help, saying “sorry, sorry, sorry,” so many times, and with her mask intermittently on and off her face. “This always happens to me, I don’t know why,” the old lady said. “Clearly, it’s the agent. I just won’t use them anymore.”
The old lady became restless as they couldn’t reach the travel agent she used for the booking.
“I’m leaving. I just don’t see anything happening,” the old lady said as she moved closer to the exit, pushing her two dogs in the stroller with her hand luggage. “Wait a moment,” Raquel said. Raquel was still trying to help her call the third-party booking agent. “I just don’t see anything happening,” the old woman said, this time, looking at me, this observer of their universe.
Writing on a sticky note, Raquel told the old lady to leave her phone number, and the travel agent’s too, telling her that she would keep trying to call them.
The old lady was now leaving. For a moment, she stood by the exit with the door left opened. Looking back at Raquel, she trailed off into an unconnected story about how Marriott took her money, never let her and some others sleep in the hotel, and how the people who took her money now control many buildings in New York and wouldn’t let her buy properties. Raquel figured the woman had dementia. It would be the second time she was experiencing an old lady with dementia at the hotel. “Ohhh!” Raquel replied to the old lady’s story. “Ahaa!” Raquel said. “Hmmm, wow.” Eventually, the old lady left.
“I feel bad I cannot help her,” Raquel reflected. “As you can see, she kept saying sorry, sorry, so many times. People treat her badly; she’s used to that.”
It was past 8 pm now. Raquel slumped into her chair, exhausted from the evening. She ran her fingers through her silky brown hair. She touched her ears, and said it had been swollen, a reaction, she believed, to the first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine she had taken a couple of days earlier.
I wondered how she maintained calm and hospitality toward the old lady — as well as other guests trooping in and out — during the encounter.
Despite demanding guests, Raquel said what kept her going for 11 years in the hotel industry was interacting with guests. Even in a pandemic, that was what she liked the most about her job.
But the pandemic had brought fewer of the type of guests she likes, and the guests who do come are more local, than international, and the challenges during this time have been more than one.
BEFORE the pandemic, the hotel industry in New York had experienced strong growth, driven by tourism. For instance, the Office of the New York State Comptroller noted in a 2017 report that “to accommodate the increased demand, more than 45,000 hotel rooms were added across the State between 2006 and 2015.” Most of these rooms were in New York City. In 2015, NYC had more than 107,000 hotel rooms, 48 percent more compared to 2006. The number of international visitors grew by 69 percent at this time, more than two times the growth of domestic travelers.
Non-traditional hospitality competitors like Airbnb — which matches people looking for accommodation with owners or renters or private spaces — began to grow bigger by 2015. This became a significant challenge for the hotel industry. Airbnb does not incur as much operating costs as traditional hotels do — which is a competitive advantage. A 2015 report prepared by HVS Consulting & Valuation for the Hotel Association of New York City noted that Airbnb cost the hotel industry $451 million in lost revenue during a 12-month period ending in August 2015. New York City also made losses from Airbnb’s disruption — the total cost to the city was estimated at $2.1 billion, including the impact on the construction industry and lost tax revenue.
Yet, nothing has quite disrupted the Hotel industry like the Covid-19 pandemic. As international travel halted, tourists disappeared. Guest occupancy levels in New York City hotels were as low as the single digits — where prior, hotels had as much as 90 percent of their rooms occupied, many hotels now had as low as 6 percent to 10 percent of rooms occupied after the pandemic hit in March 2020.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated in a 2020 report that the rate of unemployment witnessed in April and May 2020 alone was far greater than the rate in the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009. The government agency added that the largest employment losses by industry were in leisure and hospitality. Some hotels like Marriott’s Residence Inn in New Rochelle, and Hotel 48Lex on Lexington avenue, closed temporarily. But a couple of hotels could not bear the loss and closed permanently, as their revenue dipped and the cost of operating a meagre amount of rooms was not worth it. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the global consulting firm, noted that no less than 11 hotels closed for good during the second half of 2020 in Manhattan — one of New York City’s major tourist locations. The 1,015-room Roosevelt Hotel shut down, 876-room Hudson Hotel closed, as well as 480-room Novotel Times Square, 460-room Hilton Times Square, and smaller hotels like the 196-room Salisbury Hotel, 132-room AKA Wall Street, 109-room Marmara Manhattan, 102-room Best Western Bowery Hanbee, 100-room AKA Tribeca, 95-room AKA United Nations, and the 60-room Comfort Inn Manhattan Bridge.
By the final quarter of 2020, most hotels that temporarily closed initially, including Marriott’s Residence Inn in New Rochelle, and Hotel 48 Lex on Lexington Avenue, began to re-open — as the spirit of the Christmas season attracted locals to hotels. By the time more of New York City opened up gradually in the first quarter of 2021, front desk operators at hotels like Arlo Nomad and Marriott’s Aloft Harlem reported seeing up to 30% to 70% steady occupancy rates. Their hotels were occupied by locals who wanted to be in an environment different from the isolation they experienced at home during the pandemic. Some wanted to celebrate an event like a birthday, with a loved one, or have a weekend getaway with friends, or partners. In a unique situation, Aloft Harlem’s occupancy levels shot up because of its proximity to at least six hospitals, as it accommodated a lot of travel nurses and doctors, according to Malika Franklin, the Director of Sales. This is not unusual for hotels that are strategically located or in strategic partnership with companies that can help bring regular guests to stay at the hotel. “Our property can rely on minimum occupancy because we are part of a larger group of Body & Brain Wellness,” Heather Stearns, the Guest Revenue Manager at Honor’s Haven, who managed both the front desk and reservations, told me. “We are one of their retreat destinations, and they support us through some of the leaner months.” Still, the hotel remained closed for multiple weekends without guests. “It’s been very bad for our industry and location,” Stearns said of the 232-room hotel that is located outside the city. Stearns started to build marketing packages through email blasts and Facebook advertising that included wellness classes, yoga, tai chi, guided hikes, and meditation targeted at locals specifically in the city who wanted to leave that area for a weekend to get a breath of fresh air. Wellness programs, massage therapies, and yoga training were also some of the avenues Anthony Cucciniello, the General Manager at Selina Chelsea, a boutique hotel in midtown Manhattan, was also looking into. He wanted to attract locals to the hotel. “There’s an appetite for it,” he said. “Some of it has been because the city is opening up.” Cucciniello believed creating partnerships with third-party experts who can help them offer in-house services like yoga would help to improve the 40% to 60% occupancy rate the hotel was averaging in March 2021.
HAVING local guests accommodate rooms was a plus for hotels in such an economically challenging time like the pandemic. Raquel only had one complaint about them in her hotel. “We have only locals; they want to do parties, they want to bring visitors, and smoke, and drink.” She complained that the guests that often came paid no heed to the list of around 20 Covid-19-induced rules she read aloud to them upon check-in. “People are not allowed to gather,” she had said to one guest who came in. “I know this is very long, but I have to explain everything, okay?”
Smaller hotels like Raquel’s with just 34 suites could manage to operate during the pandemic because they had fewer rooms compared to bigger ones like Lexington Hotel, a few blocks away — with 725 rooms, it has remained closed since last year when the pandemic hit.
“I need to check your temperature. Can you please put your forehead there?” Raquel said to another guest, who had driven six hours from Massachusetts. The thermometer beeped and displayed 97 degrees. “Perfect,” she said, and handed him his breakfast voucher. In regular business, the hotel served breakfast downstairs. Now, breakfast was grab and go. Guests made their orders for the time they wanted, picked them up, and ate in their rooms. Guests used to eat between 7 and 10 in the breakfast area downstairs, where an array of machines for coffee, tea, juice, and waffles were arranged. The backyard at the hotel, which can be accessed through a door in the breakfast area, was now locked. There were outdoor chairs and tables there, where guests could lounge during summer. Those chairs were now covered with a waterproof polyester fabric.
Raquel was grateful for local guests, though. She missed the interaction with international guests — she got so excited when they came in and was happy to flex her multilingual skills. Raquel, a Latino woman from Venezuela, spoke Spanish, German, Italian, French, and English. It was disappointing not to have the usual influx of international guests in midtown Manhattan, but the local guests kept the hotel’s business running. And even when the hotel had laid off some of the hotel’s staff, Raquel remained one of the only few left.
Although the hotel had continued to operate, still, it was not spared by the cold hands of Covid. When the pandemic hit in 2020, the hotel had to eliminate some of its employees because of low occupancy rates and decreased revenue. The hotel became short-staffed. There used to be four employees covering the front desk. Now, Raquel and another co-worker — who worked after she left at 11 pm until the early hours of the morning — were the only two left. Then, the manager and assistant manager of the hotel covered the front desk shift from morning until Raquel arrived at 3 pm. Sometimes, she worked at the front desk outside of her scheduled days — like the Tuesday I met her and the old woman by her cubicle.
By July 2021, Raquel would have worked at the hotel for three years. “I have never taken a vacation since I started working here,” Raquel told me. “The hotel owes me a lot of days.” She intended to take those days off. It was most crucial for her now that the Covid-19 vaccine affected her health.
COVID-19 had wiped out international guests from New York’s hotel industry, leaving hundreds of the City’s more than 600 hotels empty, and years of building so many rooms to accommodate the millions of guests that flocked the city seemed to now be in vain. But Covid-19 affected the industry in many ways than one too — for some, the changes are permanent.
Heather Stearns, the Guest Revenue Manager at Honor’s Haven, who has worked in the industry for 18 years, believes the pandemic may have changed some hotels for the better. “Some hotels that may not have been as conscientious of deep cleaning practices,” Stearns said, “have now been schooled and are following better protocols than they may have been previously.”
Industry analysts like STR, a data analytic firm, which provides information and research to the hotel industry, and the President of the Hotel Association of New York City, Vijay Dandapani, have said it could take years — until 2025 — before the industry returns to its pre-pandemic levels.
Until people begin to feel comfortable travelling again, more people start working more, and more people get vaccinated, business operations would remain difficult for hotels, said Samitha Curpad, a Senior Analyst at Hilton, the hospitality group.
Would it cost more to continue to furlough people than pay to keep them? Or would it be cheaper to pay them their severance? Curpad said a lot of what goes into doing this analysis is like putting a numerical value on how much it costs to employ a person, or to keep their job. “And you can’t blame the owners because they are just trying to survive,” she said. “It’s also hard for the hotel team members because a lot of them have been furloughed for about a year now, with no real prospect of coming back.”
Harald Mootz, a veteran hotel concierge, and former president of the New York City Association of Hotel Concierge, who has been furloughed since the pandemic hit last year, said the client base off his hotel, St. Regis, heavily targets tourists. He does not expect many of the luxury properties in midtown to reopen until at least Broadway reopens. But in March, Mootz and his colleagues got an email stating the new intended return date as June 1, along with Ritz Carlton — both hotels are under Marriott’s top tier category, and they compete for the same brand market share. “Should be interesting,” Mootz said. “It would be like shooting ourselves in the foot if we both opened on the same day.”
The Mandarin Oriental hotel, and the Park Hyatt in NYC opened on the same day this month, April 1, to attract the upper niche of the market. “And then here we come,” Mootz said, “the Ritz Carlton, and St. Regis. I hope there is enough love to go around for all.”
There are still concerns that with all the reduced jobs globally, people won’t be able to afford traveling for leisure as readily as they have in the past. “All of this puts shivers down to my toes!” Heather Stearns of Honor’s Haven said.
“Even with assistance from the government, I can see some of the individually owned properties closing permanently,” Stearns said. “I think corporate branded hotels will have a more likely chance of surviving this in the long term, as they can receive larger bailouts, and with a brand name, will be able to pull in guests that might be wary of staying in a non-branded hotel.” This includes hotels such as Holiday Inn that are branded IHG — InterContinental Hotel Group. Stearns said she believed it would take “at least another year” until the property she works in returns to what they consider “normal.” Since the New Year, Honor’s Haven has only been open about half the weekends.
Another thing that may slow the recovery of the industry, experts say, is that the Unemployment Insurance people are receiving, with state bonuses is often close to what they would receive if they are working. “So when it comes to reopening the hotels fully it will be difficult to find staff that want to work, because they would rather stay home and collect Unemployment,” Stearns said.
IT had been about three weeks since the incident with the elderly woman at Raquel’s front desk when I paid her another visit.
Entering into the lobby, Raquel was sited in her usual position inside her front desk cubicle, wearing the navy-blue blazer and crimson-colored shirt she always wears. It was 9:30 pm on a Friday, and this time, there were no guests in the lobby. I asked how her week had gone and how the day was going. “Not bad, little by little,” she said. It had been a slow week — and a slow day.
I asked if her reaction to her first shot of the Covid-19 vaccine had completely waned off now. She replied in the affirmative, but added she was preparing to take her second dose in two days’ time, and was anxious about it.
She shifted her face mask a little, and took one sip from the 25 oz Poland Spring bottled water she had in front of her, telling me that she hated drinking water and had to force herself to do so daily. The bottle was as tall as the length of Raquel’s wrist to elbow. And she had barely taken a quarter of the water.
I had visited Raquel — who typically worked at the hotel from 3 pm to 11 pm from Wednesday to Friday, at least six times. Never had I seen her with bottled water by her desk. The reality of taking the second shot of the vaccine was becoming more evident to her mind. “I’m really, really, really scared. My main concern is because I have a problem with my kidney, and I reacted very badly to the first shot, so I don’t know how I’m going to react to this next one, honestly,” she said.
The coronavirus and vaccine have proven more challenging for those with pre-existing medical conditions. Raquel believed her adverse reaction to the first shot of the vaccine could have been because of her kidney problem — or, as her husband opinionated to her, she might have caught the virus around the time she took the vaccine, and she might not have known because, perhaps, she was asymptomatic. “I’m afraid,” Raquel said again, “but I’m not working next week.”
Raquel’s off days at the hotel were Mondays and Tuesdays, but the manager told her he would give her three extra days to take a Paid-Time-Off. So, she took the next five working days, from April 19 to 23rd, off work. “I will come back to work on Saturday morning,” she said, “I don’t work in the morning. I don’t know why he put me in the morning. But I have to be here at seven in the morning.” She said “in the morning” four times, like she dreaded the thought of coming that day.
Three days of vacation seemed quite inadequate for three years of work. “Would you get the remaining days of vacation you said the hotel owed?” I asked her. “Later. Let’s see,” Raquel said. “How do you feel? Did you complain about not getting off days?” I asked. “No, because I have a job,” she said and tittered, “I mean, I would like to have some vacation because I am tired, you know. I need that. But to be honest, I can’t complain because I have a job.”
Her co-worker, an Asian man, came into the hotel at 10:50 pm. “How are you, my love?” Raquel said to him. “I’m fine, sweetheart,” he replied. “How’s it going?” He said as he went to the thermometer opposite the front desk to check his temperature. “Beep,” it sounded, displaying 97.1 F. “I’m alive,” he said, with the outer v of his eyes wrinkling as he smiled. Raquel and I laughed. The hotel’s housekeeper walked past the front desk, taking out the garbage, and Raquel prepared to leave at 11 pm, as she handed the front desk over to her colleague.
