Why Hyatt Is Bullish on Return of Conventions in Second Half of 2021
Photo Credit: Hyatt grappled with major financial losses in 2020, but company leaders are upbeat by signs group business may return faster than previously expected. Wikimedia / Daderot
Skift Take
Group business, if it ever bounced back, would take years to fully recover from the pandemic's devastating impact. That was the hotel industry's thinking for most of 2020. Hyatt leaders are now telling a different story.
It’s a brutal week for hotels, as some of the industry’s largest companies reported staggering financial losses due to the pandemic and winter surge of new cases.
Buy Hyatt’s leaders are surprisingly optimistic over a much faster-than-anticipated return of a revenue stream that was supposed to be the last to recover.
“I’m really pleased, if not surprised, to report that we’re seeing some interesting and positive data with group activity,” Hyatt CEO Mark Hoplamazian said Thursday on an investor call.
The widespread belief in the hotel industry over the span of the pandemic is that leisure travel would bounce back first, then corporate travel, and finally the group meetings and events sector. But the last of the trio was expected to take years to return to pre-pandemic performance levels.
A full meetings and events revenue recovery is still a ways off, but there are signs a recovery for the division at Hyatt may happen much sooner than previously expected.
