HOLLYWOOD, Florida — The "red carpet" for tourism in some Latin America and Caribbean destinations often comes with "red tape," imposed by the government or due to other factors out of hoteliers' control.
Some consistency in policies and restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic would help to boost tourism and hotels, which also face widespread challenges with labor and supply chain delays, hotel company executives said during two "Boardroom outlook" sessions at the Hotel Opportunities Latin America conference.
Craig Smith, group president, international, at Marriott International, said governments — and by extension, people — must accept that COVID is not going away, and start learning to live with it and deal with it consistently.
He said the response to the pandemic can be broken down into three acts. The first act was the initial reaction to lock down and issue guidelines such as social distancing; second was vaccine distribution.
"Act 3 is living with COVID and understanding that you have to. There's two or three countries right now, Singapore is one of them, that have publicly come out and said, 'Listen, we're never going to get rid of COVID. Let's learn to live with it,'" Smith said.
"That's where politicians are going to need to step up in the future. They're going to need to convince the public that we won't stamp it out, but let's make sure we keep it as low as possible and let science catch up — not just with the vaccines, but what you do when somebody gets it."
The response, he said, must be more measured and moderate than it has been in many places, including some countries in Latin America.
Speaking during another boardroom session at the Caribbean Hotel & Resort Investment Summit, he said "on one side, part of the government will roll out the red carpet of promoting their destination — 'Come to our island, and it's wonderful' — and then the other part of government will roll out the red tape and make it almost impossible to set up a hotel there.
"People who want to come to the island will need four shots done under a lunar moon, on an odd day … there's all these things that make it complicated. And so it's really about getting the friction out. And I think the smart governments have figured out that they as governments are like businesses now for capital and tourism," Smith said.
Jose Carlos Azcárraga Andrade, CEO of Mexico City-based hotel operator Grupo Posadas, said sometimes no response can be better than a bad response by the government.
He said that in Mexico, where government funding and programs were scarce, "something happened which I think is even more valuable, that that is that all of the private sector really came together."
"We decided to go further than what the authorities were asking for and formed an alliance with ABC hospitals, which is probably the biggest hospital in Mexico, and 3M Products to be able to provide something better," he said.
One thing governments can do to help ease travel friction and spur demand for hotels, some speakers said, is to coordinate internationally on a common vaccine passport or policy for processing vaccination documents for air travel.
"I'm going to Berlin tonight and I can tell you it's a real headache to try to go into London, go through Heathrow and then try to enter Berlin. It is a real hassle. Trying to fill out all those forms, upload a vaccination paper and COVID test documentation and so on so forth," said David Kong, president and CEO of BWH Group, a global hotel brand company which includes Best Western Hotels & Resorts.
"The vaccine passport that the [European Union] introduced is so much easier. And I wish there was a way that the United States, as a country within ourselves, as well as other countries could join forces and create one single protocol. Call it vaccine passport or whatever you want to call it — a way for us to upload our vaccination documentation as well as test results to make life easier to travel," he said.
On the same panel, Alex Zozaya, chairman of all-inclusive resort management firm Apple Leisure Group, said that if G20 countries can agree on one protocol, other countries will follow.
"Eliminate the confusion and regain trust by having the same protocols, the same standards. Unfortunately I think it's going to take longer because of political reasons," he said.
"It's amazing how we'll look at the same data ... and we come up with different conclusions. The only thing in between is politics. So, I wish they could take the politics out faster and really come to a common language with a digital passport that aligns and makes it easier, and safer by the way."
'The Right People'
Labor is presenting challenges for the hotel industry around the world, but at least in Latin America, the problem isn't a shortage of workers, said Daniel Campos Lara, managing director and partner at hotel operator and developer Caribe Hospitality.
The losses in revenue and demand caused by the pandemic have forced hotels to implement efficiencies in staffing, often requiring workers to perform multiple roles with different skill sets. While Latin Americans are eager to work, and in general passionate about hospitality, finding "the right people," and training them for the hotel jobs of today is challenging, Campos Lara said.
A lack of government support — in the form of stimulus and unemployment checks, like in the U.S. — is one factor in creating a more willing workforce, he said.
"We find that yes, there is a labor force out there, but not necessarily a qualified labor force," he said.
"Our biggest challenge has been how to obtain and pull in as many people as we can because unemployment is a huge issue in our countries. We can find people right now, but finding the right talent, and the right people to deliver the service that hospitality guests are now expecting is the challenge. It's going to cost us more to train."
Michael Cobb, CEO of Belize-based ECI Development, said training is required to adjust to the needs of the guests, but that training also takes time.
"In the development business, the lexicon is spaces — first space home, second space work, third space vacation. What we've had, for many people, is that collapse of the first and second space — home is now work, work is now home. And people are feeling this need to get out and recreate," he said.
"From that standpoint, the hospitality industry, to the extent that we can solve that problems is training. We've lost people. And now how do we, as hoteliers and people in the hospitality industry generally, deliver the level of service that the client expects. That is our challenge, and that challenge has become greater in the last year and a half. Training is the key, but that's not overnight. Training takes time."
Supply Chain
Hoteliers developing or renovating a property in the region face the same supply chain delays that are plaguing the entire global hotel industry.
Jorge Apaez, chief operating officer for Mexico and the Latin America and Caribbean region at IHG Hotels & Resorts, said a hotel construction project started at the beginning of 2020 was expected to restart in April 2021 but is still on the shelf due to supply chain delays.
"Definitely, there have been challenges with supplies with materials with factories, especially flooring and those type of things. Most of those materials are coming from Europe," he said.
"We attempted to restart the project in April, and we are in September, and we don't think we might be able to get back to work until later on."
Cobb said his company's projects in the region also have been held up, but the real estate developer is putting that extra time into strategy.
"The biggest challenge has been on the supply chain side of things," he said. "One of the things that we've been able to do is use some of these delays to get the kinds of product that we need, as an opportunity to do some value engineering, and hopefully that will offset some of the interest carry and other costs that we have from the longer delays."