1. US Surpasses 1 Million COVID-19 Deaths
More than one million people in the U.S. citizens have perished from the COVID-19 pandemic, which is a global record, according to the New York Times. The newspaper’s database listed on May 19 1,000,013 deaths resulting from the virus.
The newspaper added more than 100,000 US citizens and residents are contracting the virus daily and “cases are rising in nearly every state, and since many cases go uncounted in official reports, the true toll is likely even higher than these figures suggest.”
It also said the one-million “milestone comes amid declining daily rates of new deaths nationwide. Fewer than 350 fatalities are currently announced each day, a decrease of 17% in the past two weeks.”
2. Sri Lanka's Hotel Industry Tumbles In Wake of Crisis
Recently one of the poster children of world tourism, Sri Lanka is being shunned by tourists in the wake of its economic crisis, the latest chapter being defaulting on its debt this week for the first time in its history, according to TTG Asia.
Mailvaganam Shanthikumar, president of THASL, Hotels Association of Sri Lanka, and a director at the Ramada by Wyndham Colombo, said 80% of bookings have cancelled even as tourism officials "have tried to persuade visitors that it is safe to holiday in Sri Lanka.”
The United Kingdom’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said it advised "against all but essential travel to Sri Lanka, due to ongoing political and economic instability. … A state of emergency has been declared in Sri Lanka, and curfews are being imposed at short notice.” The U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Consular Affairs added "reconsider travel to Sri Lanka due to fuel and medicine shortages. Exercise increased caution. … Protests have occurred throughout the country and have mostly been peaceful.”
3. Yotel CEO Reaffirms Confidence in Urban Markets
Despite suggestions that urban hotels are a difficult vehicle to invest in at the moment, Yotel CEO Hubert Viriot said he has always remained confident that demand for urban hotels will bounce back. Viriot, who made his comments in a video interview with Hotel News Now's Sean McCracken at the recent International Hotel Investment Forum, said his hotels are in the world’s major cities, including New York, Miami, San Francisco, London, Singapore and Istanbul.
“The younger crowds … are huge believers in cities. Now, cities may have to be reinvented and be built more around the people and less around the cars and less around the industries. But I think the future's still there,” he said.
For more of Viriot’s insight, please click here.
4. Texan Sentenced to 70 Months For Hotel Investment Fraud
An Austin, Texas, man who hosted business seminars promising to help attendees "get rich in five years with hotels," was sentenced to 70 months in prison Thursday for fraud by a U.S. Federal Court. Jason Michael Schubert had previously pleaded guilty for running a scheme of fraudulent hotel investments from 2012 to 2018.
A news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Western District of Texas, states Schubert "solicited money from the [seminar] participants for investing in pre-existing hotel properties that he would manage and operate while claiming that investors would profit with little effort on their part. … However, many of the hotels were older and in substantial disrepair. Although Schubert had no hotel management experience, he represented that investor funds would be used to renovate the hotels. Instead, he misappropriated the money by paying himself significant 'management fees.'”
Last December, Schubert pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and one count of engaging in a monetary transaction involving criminally derived property.” In addition to his prison sentence, he was also ordered to repay $5,052,366.92.
5. Spirit Airlines Urges Shareholders To Reject JetBlue’s Takeover Bid
As the complicated landscape for airlift is already affecting hotels, a tussle between low-cost carriers in the U.S. is further complicating things. Spirit Airlines is now publicly asking shareholders to reject JetBlue's hostile takeover bid as the former company continues to pursue a merger with Frontier Airlines, the Wall Street Journal reports. Spirit executives said they believe JetBlue’s all-cash takeover bid of $3.3 billion carries too much regulatory risk.
The newspaper said JetBlue has offered $30 a share for the airline, but that it might up that to $33 a share, “compared with the roughly $20 value of [rival airline] Frontier’s cash-and-stock proposal based on [May 19’s] stock price."