BERLIN — The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated many developments in the hotel industry, including hybrid meetings and more efficient technology.

The pandemic also is accelerating operational initiatives aimed at capturing a share of revived travel demand, according to four CEOs speaking on a panel at the International Hotel Investment Forum.

Patrick Pacious, president and CEO of Choice Hotels International, said the challenges of the past 18 months have made him and his team work much faster.

“There were so many [initiatives] in pilot; we just said no more pilots, let’s just throw it out. Over the last few years we’ve looked at reducing the total cost of ownership, but no longer are we trying [something out] in 30 hotels. We know it will work, and the success has been 80%."

Too often, he added, the hotel industry is "smart enough to know what to do, but we are slow to do it."

David Kong, CEO of BWH Hotel Group, said the hotel product is changing much more swiftly than it has in the past.

“Why not reposition hotels to be boutique, to open them up to the new market that is there right now? We have to expect the unexpected, have a long-term view of things and make sure we have a lot of savings to draw on,” he said, noting as an example a property in Austin, Texas, that was repositioned higher from a Best Western Plus to an Aiden by Best Western.

He agreed research, testing and learning is important, but said it is very easy to get locked into that pattern and not emerge from it.

“Things such as housekeeping on request — we pushed it out, and this was great from an environmental and cost-savings angle,” he added.

Dillip Rajakarier, CEO of Thailand-based Minor Hotel Group, said his company never stopped expanding during the months of the pandemic.

“Some say we are asset-heavy, 65% ownership, with lots of equity exposure, but it is being about being better, asset-right, and in those regions where we have met our investment threshold and established brands,” he said.

“Companies that become gun-shy and stop — that is a disaster. You have to think short-, medium- and long-term all at the same time. We feel quite bullish, and I think the companies that will fall on their swords are those not being wide enough in segmentation and not being able to pivot,” he added.

Other areas in which the industry needs to speed up are sustainability, labor and diversity.

The CEOs said the industry needs to get out of the “locking” pattern of just speaking about these things.

Giorgio Manenti, panel moderator and managing director of investment banking company Eastdil Secured, said many German and European institutional capital sources now are not investing in companies that do not have sustainability plans in place.

Rajakarier said a crisis in labor is forcing companies to formulate better action plans to increase wages and benefits and provide career opportunities to attract talent from other industries that currently pay better.

“The industry needs to work more closely than we are,” said Federico González, CEO of Radisson Hotel Group.

While the CEOs were quick to state the numbers or percentage of women on their management teams and boards of directors, they suggested that overall women are still a minority in the industry.

“We also have to look at how to make more female owners. That [percentage] is 7% in the U.S., and the main problem is their lack of being able to gain access to capital. There is a lot of work from capital markets to change this,” Pacious said.

The CEOs said initiatives that focus on the future of the industry are necessary, but will depend on hotel firms recovering.

Right now, the hotel industry globally is in turbulence.

Markets such as Australia and China were early into the crisis and early out, but pandemic problems are now starting to appear there again.

The U.S. hotel industry is the shining star at the moment, but the Delta variant of COVID-19 could very quickly end the optimism.

“I am not sure how the end of the year will look, but based on the data Europe is going up [in hotel performance], but Asia is going backwards, which is a shame as they should have learned from what Europe went through last winter when it was dire there,” Kong said.

Pacious said he is confident overall in the recovery, particularly in the U.S.

“In the U.S., economy and midscale segments are approaching 2019 levels, and extended stay is very resilient and even surpassing 2019. Someone who has two sets of grandchildren has two trips to make,” he said.

“And from two months ago, we saw [Europe, Middle East and Africa] pick up,” he added.

Kong said the desire to travel and excess cash available from guests not dining out or buying clothes has resulted in an uptick in hotel bookings in the U.S., although he added the Delta variant is making companies hold off a little in terms of business bookings.

“But the U.S. is already back or exceeding 2019 price points, and Europe is not far behind. In Canada, too, we’re seeing it exceeding 2019 [revenue per available room] immediately on vaccination rates reaching 70% and the Canada-U.S. border opening,” he said.

Pacious said he expects business travel will not fully return to the same high levels of 2019.

“Then again, a lot of people are retiring, three times the level that it was pre-COVID-19. People are living longer, have more discretionary income, house prices have increased and people realize that it can be more comfortable retiring a little earlier,” he said.

“The demand for seven-plus nights’ [bookings] outweighs the supply for it, in the U.S. and in some other markets,” he added.

Rajakarier said the F&B division Minor owns in China, with more than 100 restaurants, is doing better now that it was in 2019.

“The Chinese are not allowed to go international at the moment. In the Middle East in 2020 and 2021, we have beaten our budgets,” he said, adding that in his native Thailand, besieged in recent years by natural disasters, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and political coups, “we think if there is not an annual crisis there must be something wrong in the world.”

“And a lot of the politicians do not have a clue. There are no [COVID-19 travel] standards, but once they are established people will travel,” he added.