A small but growing group of hotels across the U.S. are requiring guests to show proof of COVID-19 vaccinations in an effort to address the delta variant that has caused a late-summer surge in infections.
What began with a late-July announcement by the 19-room Pilgrim House Inn in Provincetown, Massachusetts, to require guests to show proof of vaccination has progressed to the south and west, as at least 13 additional hotels, including one each under the Hilton and Marriott brands, have also announced proof-of-vaccination requirements for guests.
Most notable among hotel operators may have been longtime boutique hotelier Ian Schrager, whose 367-room Public Hotel in early August became the first New York City hotel to announce its guest proof-of-vaccination requirement. Schrager said that policy, which went into effect for guests staying on or after Sept. 5, was spurred by New York's mandate that anyone over the age of 11 years old had to show proof of vaccination in order to enter a restaurant, nightclub, bar, gym, movie theater, concert venue and other indoor facilities as of Aug. 17, but didn’t make the same requirement for those in hotel rooms or lobbies.
“What pushed me over the line was the contradiction of requiring people in some areas [of a hotel] to be vaccinated and people in other areas not to be,” Schrager said. “It made no sense to me.”
Within days of Schrager’s announcement, two other New York City properties indicated that they would follow suit. The 212-room Equinox Hotel New York, a sister entity to the luxury-fitness-center brand of the same name, announced on Aug. 10 that the proof-of-vaccination requirement would go into effect on Sept. 13. Brooklyn’s Wythe Hotel acted with an even greater sense of urgency, announcing on Aug. 13 that the 70-room hotel would start requiring guests to show proof of COVID-19 vaccinations just three days later.
Other properties outside of New York City have also enacted the same policy. The 28-room Urban Cowboy Lodge in the Catskills started requiring guest to provide proof of vaccinations as of Aug. 12, while Santa Fe, New Mexico’s Ten Thousand Waves Resort and Spa did the same for its 14 guestrooms starting Sept. 1.
Earlier this month, seven Hawaii hotels run by Highgate Hotels — including the Ambassador Waikiki Hotel, Aston Waikiki Beach Hotel, Courtyard by Marriott Waikiki, Hilton Garden Inn Waikiki Beach, Park Shore Waikiki and Pearl Waikiki Hotel — as well as the Alohilani Resort Waikiki Beach announced their proof-of-vaccine mandate, effective Oct. 15.
"We have 150 people working at the spa, and they're on the front lines, so it's my job to protect them and protect the people," said Duke Klauck, founder and president of Ten Thousand Waves. “You just have to make [patronizing a business] inconvenient enough for the unvaccinated to go out and get the shot. If enough people in the private sector and enough cities say, ‘You can’t be unvaccinated and come to our restaurant or spa,’ I think, at some point, a lot of these vaccine deniers will come around and do the right thing.”
By instituting the mandate, hoteliers may be risking some backlash in the form of canceled reservations at a time when hotel-demand remains below pre-pandemic levels. U.S. hotels’ second-quarter revenue per available room was 21% lower than second-quarter 2019 numbers as occupancy stood at 61% while the average room rate was about $120 per night, according to CoStar's hospitality analytics firm STR.
Hotels appear to be narrowing the gap, as first-quarter RevPAR was off 42% from two years prior. Still, the travel industry is contending with the impact of COVID’s delta variant, which has caused an additional wave of cases across the U.S. As of mid-September, the seven-day average of new U.S. COVID-19 cases topped 150,000, which was up from a mid-June low of about 11,000, and marked the highest number of cases since late January, according to data compiled by the New York Times.
With that in mind, some hoteliers say a mandatory proof-of-vaccination policy is consistent with either a specific brand hallmark that emphasizes wellness or a more general philosophy of taking care of a guest.
“Being a health-focused hotel, our vaccine requirement is just one part of Equinox Hotel’s holistic approach to the health and safety of our community,” said Equinox Hotel New York General Manager Jeff Rednour. “We have found that our clientele appreciates what we are doing to keep them protected.”
“This is not a political or ideological issue for me,” Schrager said. “This is a question of communal health. We’re in the hotel business, and we have to look after our guests.”
Whether such guests are seeking such extra protection remains in question. Rednour said that he’s not seen any evidence that vaccination requirements have affected demand either positively or negatively.
Meanwhile, Peter Lawrence, owner of the Wythe Hotel in Brooklyn, New York, said the hotel received “a few cancellations [though] mostly strong support.”
“We’re not getting any pushback” from guests, Schrager said, though he added that two workers no longer work at the hotel because of their decision to not comply with the hotel’s policy mandating for staff members to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
"We've experienced a minority of the deniers, and they're very vocal. They're the ones that call us and yell at us or say on Yelp reviews that we're going to go bankrupt," Klauck said. "But the response has been 9-to-1 in favor."
With concerns about additional COVID-19 variants such as lambda and mu potentially infecting both vaccinated and unvaccinated travelers, hoteliers were hesitant to put any timetable on when they would reverse their policies and remove the proof-of-vaccination requirement.
“I think this will be standard operation for the foreseeable future," Lawrence said. "It’s the best way to protect the team here as well as all the guests and diners and patrons.”
“We're still on the growth trend again," Schrager said. "When I see that going down and I think it is under control, we'll loosen up the control. You can't please everybody."