Beyond Recovery

The hospitality industry was turned upside-down in March 2020 and both owners and operators have been forced to adapt on the fly to new demand patterns and new customer behaviors.

At Vagabond Inn, a West Coast brand with around 30 properties, dynamic markets have kept both corporate and property-level leaders on their toes. California, where most of the company’s properties are located, has been locked down for most of the year with heavy travel restrictions in place.

It’s becoming more and more apparent that, for hotels to lead their respective markets in recovery, leadership must have a dedicated focus on data. And it’s not just the revenue department that needs to be tracking and measuring data on the regular – all departments across the organization must be dialed in to what demand is on the books and how that compares to last year, last month, and even last week.

Basecamp Hotels, already one of the coolest up and coming hospitality brands, has found itself perfectly positioned for travel recovery. The South Lake Tahoe-based company has four properties – each converted from “under-appreciated” motels – in beautiful locations ready for socially distanced exploration.

Recovery will be market by market, and we can take cues from hotels that are already welcoming back guests in this new normal.

Like many things across the hospitality industry, “recovery” is difficult to generalize – in fact, traveler demand will return to each market, each segment and each chain scale differently.

As evidenced by the 61-room Long Beach Lodge Resort in Tofino, British Columbia, the local resort segment in Canada is already back on track.