Hilton Hall? Colleges Consider Hotels as Dormitories to Speed Up Return to Campus
Photo Credit: Colleges like Northwestern University (pictured) are considering housing some students in hotels in the fall semester to respect social distancing guidelines. Flickr / Jaysin Trevino
Skift Take
Residential hall deals with universities may be the rare type of group booking the hotel industry gets in 2020, and provide some operators with enough occupancy and revenue to buoy into recovery mode.
Neighborhood hotels could play a vital role assisting colleges and universities in their ability to reopen campuses to students in time for the fall semester.
Higher education institutions are weighing various scenarios of what the 2020-2021 academic year will look like, especially during a global pandemic where a vaccine is not readily available. Many colleges and universities in the U.S. ended on-campus learning in the middle of spring semester due to coronavirus but are now committing to reopening campus in the fall.
Social distancing and heightened safety standards are an essential condition in returning to group activities for the foreseeable future, and administrators are in talks with hotel operators to make student housing safe in the fall.
“We’ve had a team of folks that we’ve amplified calling on and talking to vice presidents of operations and finance and other operators at universities for several weeks,” Hilton Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales Fran
