The United Kingdom government said international travel, currently banned for the large majority of people, will be permitted to recommence on May 17, but travelers might have to get and pay for COVID-19 tests before they leave and on their return, plus be responsible for any tests and costs in the country they are arriving in, according to the BBC.

The Secretary of State for Transport, Grant Shapps said that a “traffic light” system of countries will be produced in the next few weeks, with “red” countries required a paid-for, 10-day quarantine at a hotel when they arrive back in the U.K.

Airline bosses and others are claiming the test costs are too high and will discourage travelers, with Shapps saying he is doing all he can to reduce that cost.

In other U.K. hospitality news, pubs and restaurants will be able to serve customers in outdoor settings beginning next week.

Sir Richard Sutton, who through his firm Sir Richard Sutton Settled Estate owns the freeholds on two of London’s grandest hotels, The Athenaeum and Sheraton Grand London Park Lane, was murdered on April 8 at his home in Gillingham, Dorset, as reported by BBC. His alleged murderer is in the hospital with serious injuries.

A woman, believed to be Sutton’s wife, also was stabbed and remains in critical condition. The murdered man, 83 years of age, and the alleged murderer, 34, were known to one another, according to a report in the Dorset Echo.

A spokesperson for Sutton’s firm said “Sir Richard was a caring, generous and warm family man, who genuinely regarded those who worked for him as part of his extended family.”

The 600-room Watson Hotel on West 57th Street in Manhattan has been acquired by Yellowstone Real Estate Investments for approximately $175 million, according to Crain’s New York Business.

The previous record for the pandemic-era sale price was the $151.2 million spent in December on the 189-room Surrey Hotel (evidently a higher price per key), also in New York City, by British brothers David Reuben and Simon Reuben.

Revenue managers are constantly adapting their pricing strategies, and the global COVID-19 pandemic has provided plenty of reasons to revisit and retune those strategies, said revenue managers speaking on a panel titled “The Evolving Role of Revenue Management,” part of the Hotel Data Conference: Global Edition, writes Hotel News Now’s Dan Kubacki.

Suzie Thompson, vice president commercial, Red Carnation Hotels, said one of the biggest changes her company made was to bring the sales and marketing and the revenue teams together to help navigate the current situation and streamline where possible.

Jen Yakimicki Guimond, vice president of revenue, North Central Group, added that “revenue management has both an art and a science component . … The art portion I feel is a skill set, those soft skills that we'd be looking at more closely.”

Booking windows are becoming tighter, and the importance of better data and better analysis of it cannot be overemphasized, panelists said.

The World Travel & Tourism Council’s latest report on the effect of COVID-19 on world travel provides some sobering statistics affecting the travel and tourism sector globally.

The sector saw a loss of $4.5 trillion in 2020. Its contribution to gross domestic product dropped 49.1% in 2020 compared to 2019.The report added the sector contributed 10.4% of global gross domestic product in 2019 but only 5.5% in 2020.

In terms of labor, 62 million jobs were lost across the globe, a fall of 18.5% from 2019’s total of 334 million, with the WTTC adding the figure would undoubtedly be far worse if it were not for government furlough schemes and other financial help for both businesses and staff.

Compiled by Terence Baker.