Travel's Reopening and Coronavirus Recovery

Hotels are not out of the woods yet. Marriott notched the best financial showing of hotel earnings season so far, but the Delta variant threatens the recovery everywhere — even in China, the company’s best-performing major market last quarter.

If Accor can go from billion-dollar losses to profitability in a matter of months, Marriott shareholders should expect plenty of financial gains and optimism on Tuesday's earnings call.

The pandemic and the push for sustainability are forcing airports to think outside of the box. The more creative, the bigger the win, it seems. But are some of these revenue-generating ideas here for the long run or only until travel recovers?

Leisure may lead the way for now, but Hilton is banking on business travel reviving in a matter of months. Without more people getting vaccinated, variants of the virus can quickly turn informed predictions into blind optimism.

Flight attendants feeling the brunt of unruly passengers are not feeling protected. If airlines don't want to lose these valuable workers, lose revenue and potentially set travel's recovery back with canceled flights, more must be done by the government to ensure their safety.

Propped up by a pent-up demand to travel and propelled by growing brand conversions, Wyndham looks to be on the path to a strong recovery locally. Its only worries would be the Delta variant that could possibly reinstate travel restrictions internationally.

U.S. airlines avoided broad bankruptcies and cuts with the record $74 billion in government Covid-19 aid. But the relief was industry-specific and left out a lot of other sectors, including hotels and restaurants. That has meant a bumpy national economic recovery.

It’s a little early to call this a rebound, but Accor finally has some wind in its sails as far as recovery numbers go. Now it just needs to hold onto some level of the momentum heading into the fall.

Construction cranes for hotels haven’t been called off to the level as some hotel industry analysts would have you believe. It can take years to build a new hotel, and those breaking ground now will open just in time for the pandemic to be in the rearview mirror.