I was just finishing my university studies during the late 1980s recession. Finding a job wasn’t going to be easy, particularly in hospitality — an industry hit hard by the downturn.
I recall watching a commercial on television from United Airlines (“Speech”) that still resonates with me today. In summary, an office manager explains to his team that they had lost their best customer to the competition because in-person meetings had been replaced with impersonal phone calls or faxes. He gives each team member a plane ticket to visit each customer so as not to lose any more deals. (Watch the one-minute video; I won’t share the powerful ending as it would be a spoiler.)
I thought about this as I perused a Hotel News Now article that references the challenges in business travel and the art of the deal. Chip Ohlsson of Wyndham Hotels & Resorts notes, "When I hear that business travel is not coming back, I'll tell you that's absolutely 100% true right up until somebody loses the first deal. When a company loses their first deal out there, they're going to turn to their operations team and say, 'Get back out on the road and go meet with people.’”
This message is repeated by others in the same article.
At Preferred Hotels & Resorts, we’ve seen dramatic growth in global distribution system bookings — an indicator that business travel is on the rebound. In fact, we’re above our own expectations and anticipate matching or exceeding 2019 levels next year in this valuable booking channel. Furthermore, we’ve had an explosive year in group leads.
Ironically, many hotels aren’t closing those opportunities to grab the high-rated transient business out there. We can talk about the effect of that strategy another time, but the point is that business travel is already returning. It may evolve into a more “bleisure” or blended travel model — with longer stays including weekends.
Adam Sacks, president of Tourism Economics, notes that 34% of travelers plan to travel as they work remotely.
As a hotelier, it does feel great to witness the hustle and bustle in hotel conference spaces and see business people with laptops in lobbies. Business travel, and the combination of leisure and business travel, is here to stay.
Mid-pandemic, Fareed Zakaria wrote in his book Ten Lessons for a Post-Pandemic World, “The reason our cities grow and endure, even when faced with calamities, is because most of us are naturally drawn to participation, collaboration, and competition. Rationalizations for city living vary … but underneath the more obvious reasons lie deep urges toward social interaction and connection — by nature, we are social animals.”
Late in 2019, Google shared that Tokyo was one of the world’s 10 top trending destinations due largely to the 2020 Olympics, which were expected to take place under more conventional circumstances, but also because it is an important global business center. And sure enough, when Japan reopened its borders to international arrivals in October, we saw a flood of bookings — both leisure and business — into our hotels going into 2023.
The pent-up demand for travel, and the need to resume business meetings, underscores what the boss said in that United Airlines commercial. It may have been over 30 years ago, but the message is the same: Doing business face-to-face, with a handshake, cannot be replaced by technology.
I’m proud to work for a company with wonderful hotels that have the very places and spaces we need to be social. Here’s to the return of business travel — in whatever form it takes, we’re here to make it happen.
Rhett Hirko is global vice president of revenue optimization for Preferred Hotels & Resorts.
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