Coronavirus Travel News

The Delta variant has set the travel recovery back with most U.S. airlines eating humble pie after overly rosy outlooks in July. With the business travel recovery delayed at least three months, the industry hopes to counter the tide of bad news with some possible year-end, holiday cheer.

It is hard to be optimistic about fall hotel performance for companies like Marriott and Hilton — unless the absence of business travel is somehow offset by higher-than-expected leisure travel.

Major hotel companies like Marriott and Hilton want franchisees to think bigger is better in terms of signing a branding deal. Standard International wants to show you can stay independent and punch above your weight — but having cool factor and financial backup still helps.

This is good news for those who like what Bill Gates as a partial owner has done to help Four Seasons grow in recent years. But there is still a lot of uncertainty around when the market will be back to the kind of conditions that help put heads in beds in one of these glitzy hotels.

It’s hard to get a true sense of what future business travel demand will look like until international borders reopen and people can return to the office. But it is time to temper the optimism on any significant recovery happening by the end of the year. CEOs seem to finally get this.

Given air travel's standstill in 2020, and the impact of new Delta variant scares, you might think this list would be longer. Still, seeing the airline casualties together like this is pretty staggering.