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Hotels

Myopia, Spin and the End of the Hotel Industry's Winning Streak

Alan Woinski

Photo Credit: Empty hotels like the one show here are all too common now across the globe, as the coronavirus hits the hospitality industry.  Flickr / Hieng Ling Tie

Skift Take

Just weeks ago, the trend was for hotel companies to give guidance that didn't include coronavirus fallout with the expectation that analysts would bless them. How in the world do you trust guidance that doesn’t include the biggest negative impact of the year?

Series: Viewpoint

For our Viewpoint series, Skift invites thought leaders, some from the less obvious corners of travel, to join in the conversation. We know that these independent voices are important to the dialogue within the industry. Our guest columnists will identify and shape what global trends and through lines will define the future of travel.
The mood this past January at the annual Americas Lodging Investment Summit (ALIS) in Los Angeles was understandably ambivalent, with no apparent signs that the longest lodging upcycle in the history of the industry showed any signs of slowing. But my team and I had a different, unsettling feeling. Everyone in L.A. was shrugging off what we now call coronavirus, which back then just changed its label from a “pneumonia of unknown origin” to coronavirus, but had not yet graduated to Covid-19. The mood at ALIS was cautiously optimistic with the view that 2020 would be like 2019. When someone did bring up coronavirus, it was dismissed as something like SARS or Zika — in other words, nothing to be worried about. The biggest topics at ALIS were Kobe Bryant, the impeachment trial, Bernie Sanders, and all things Trump and hotel industry-specific, expense creep from labor, and fixed costs. The best comment I heard when I brought up coronavirus was that just about everyone thought it would be an afterthought in a month. To say we were a bit put off by this would be an understatement. We rang the alarm bell on this in early January in our sister publications, the Gaming Industry Daily and Weekly Reports, warning that Macau faced a grave threat from this “pneumonia of unknown origin” because it was spreading and that the timing was

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