NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Although hotel industry performance has drastically improved over the depths of 2020, hoteliers are facing a crunch with the traditional leisure travel season winding down and increasing COVID-19 cases threatening a rebound in business travel.
But speakers during the "Tracking Transient: Exploring Trends in Business and Leisure Travel and How To Reach Guests" panel at the 2021 Hotel Data Conference, Lori Berhent, vice president of revenue generation and business development at Emerald Hospitality Associates, said her top advice to her employees is simple: "Don't panic."
"I think it's important to not panic when we see that dip that very well probably is going to happen," she said. "We remain confident."
Berhent said part of the challenge preparing for an end-of-year slowdown is finding new kinds of base business, like traveling sports teams or construction crews, the latter of which is a demand stream she wouldn't have tapped in the past.
"We were a little nervous going into it, but I think we're very glad to have that base, especially looking into the fall," she said.
Karen Cooksey, vice president of sales and marketing for Vesta Hospitality, said it's also important to remember that leisure demand isn't likely to completely go over a cliff at the end of the year.
"We're not going to see in the fourth quarter the leisure demand we saw in July, but what we are seeing is stronger leisure demand for the fourth quarter than we would traditionally see at this point in time," she said. "We're seeing some really good holiday traffic. We've got some events that are going to happen in a modified fashion, and we're seeing some traffic from that."
While it's impossible to completely predict the path the pandemic and the overall travel recovery will take, Cooksey said hoteliers must still arm themselves with as much knowledge as possible, particularly knowledge about what's happening in their markets.
"Probably more than ever before, you need to know what's happening in your backyard," she said. "We have found business in some places that we never thought of."
Berhent said part of that process is engaging entire property staffs for revenue-generating ideas and to be more connected to what's happening in the communities surrounding hotels.
"I think it's about embracing the teams we have and helping them be a part of the solution to help you understand who is traveling and what we can do to get more," she said.
She also said that in a period of tightened budgets and scaled-back spending, hoteliers need to be much more thoughtful about marketing spend, in particular. That means finding the marketing efforts that connect with current travelers and eliminating those things that hoteliers do just because they've always done them.
Areas Berhent suggested cutting back on include things that used to be automatic, such as highway signage and sponsorships.
"Do you really need to be on that sign anymore?" she asked. "Most people are using an app on their phone. They're not even looking at the highway sign. So you really need to think inside out about each of those things."