Your City Was Home to a Superspreader Hotel: What Hospitality Can Learn From Boston’s Comeback Plan
Photo Credit: A Boston conference tied to coronavirus cases around the world isn't deterring travel groups in their push to once again host indoor meetings. Pixabay / usmc0491
Skift Take
The world's hotels need events and meetings to return, likely before a coronavirus vaccine is released, in order to survive financially. Boston's rebound plan is a solution with global implications.
Boston travel organizations know they have a giant thorn from their past to overcome for state officials to green light a plan to once again allow the private events and meetings the state’s largest hotels need in order to survive.
A Biogen conference at the Boston Marriott Long Wharf hotel in late February has been labeled an early coronavirus superspreader event — tied to cases both in Massachusetts as well as across the U.S. and Europe when attendees returned home. Massachusetts, one of the hardest hit in the U.S. during the coronavirus pandemic, eventually went into one of the toughest state-mandated lockdowns in the U.S. and has since seen its new case count plummet while other regions see their confirmed cases soar.
Massachusetts entered the third phase of its economic reopening this week, enabling indoor dining and many tourist attractions to reopen. But Gov. Charlie Baker’s administration has capped indoor event capacity to 25 people, well below the range hotels nee
