HOTEL NEWS NOTES
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly! – In the Hotel/Hospitality Industry
Set out in Reverse Order
The Ugly (Worst-2021) The Bad (Distressing-2021-2022) and The Good (EXCELLENT) 2022!
[AND read the last Comments at the bottom for some positive non-hospitality comments.]
About 225 people attended the annual, and this year, in-person Western Canadian Lodging Conference (WCLC) in November. They were hoteliers, builders, flag (brand) representatives, suppliers and contractors, associated with the hotel and tourism industries who gathered for the annual conference after a one year absence due to Covid. Stephanie Gadbois and her team from Big Picture Conferences put together a terrific program.
The Ugly (Worst):
US decline in RevPAR was 48% compared to Canada and Europe at 70%. ADR and RevPAR are rising but it isn’t enough to cover the increasing costs. One hotel owner/developer told me they will need at least a 10% increase in overall revenue just to offset rising costs.
The Bad (Distressing):
Bad 1: On a Zoom meeting with a group of 50-60 commercial real estate agents from virtually every state in the US, one
party spoke about attending a recent meeting of some 150 attendees in Las Vegas. A number of people contracted COVID and the husband of one couple who was 46 years old contracted the illness and passed away. Did he have co-morbidities? I don’t know but the fact remains that while we need NOT be frightened into hiding, we DO need to continue to be careful and circumspect in our own behaviour.
Bad 2: After a friend had his car stolen just outside Kansas City I got these recommendations for hoteliers from Blaine Gillam, President – Perpetuity Security Consulting “Hotel parking lots are a haven for car thieves. A hotel that has car thief concerns has a duty of care to their guests. Advise guests to remove or lock valuables in the vehicle’s trunk. Place a sign in the vehicle stating “Valuable Items Removed”. Crime Prevention through Environmental Design, (CPTED) principles include natural surveillance: clear sight lines, thorny bush hedging to discourage and prevent criminals from walking on hotel property. For severely or regularly affected hotels, further preventative measures could include extra CCTV and lighting and/or security, trained employees conducting frequent external patrols.”
Better: Those that watch Real Time with Bill Maher may have seen him on one of his recent Friday night programs “welcoming” the end of the pandemic. While Maher has supported the CDC’s Fauci, ie masking, vaccinations etc. he was now more or less saying “goodbye” to Covid. To paraphrase Bill, “Yes Covid – you’ve been here but it’s time to leave now. Bye Bye!” For those in hospitality we can observe that despite variants, humanity is getting Covid under control. We will normalize to a Covid Normal and then simply regular Normal going forward.
The GOOD (EXCELLENT)
- 1Sooooo many hoteliers and flag representative attendees from Choice, IHG (Holiday Inns etc), Wyndham, Marriott, etc. were talking about how the hotel industry, for the large part is surviving and looking forward to fully reviving.
- 2Banks and Hotel mortgage and finance brokers were actually talking about deals, transactions, refinancings and – yes – sometimes even in Alberta and Saskatchewan for the right circumstances.
- 3SUCCESS STORY: I had occasion to meet two bright, cheerful, women, Sky and Teresa. A natural question in my mind as we discussed a food selection: who are these folks and what do they do? Probably suppliers of some sort just getting up to speed in the industry. Wrong! This was Sky Mclean Owner, with Teresa Cook, VP Finance and Dave Jones VP of Operations for – wait for it – Basecamp Resorts. Sky has had a fascinating career. She decided to “hire herself” and go into business which she did -- not with a measly “bang” but a with a huge “thunderclap”. If you check their website you will see they have 7 properties in Canmore, Golden and Revelstoke with 20 other projects on the go. They started only 5 years ago in 2016 admittingly in tourist rich Canmore when Sky was 32. What an encouraging hospitality and life story.
Three Positive Comments/Quotes:
- 1Life Insurance Actuaries calculating lifespans for those born literally right now are calculating them living possibly as long as to 120 years. IE: Aging is a Curable Condition.
“Why We Age – AND Why We Don’t Have To – Lifespan” book and audio – Dr. David Sinclair. - 2“Even when the ancient bane of pestilence rose up anew in the twenty-first century, we identified the cause within days, sequenced the genome within weeks and administered vaccines within a year, keeping its death toll a fraction of those historic pandemics.” “Rationality”, book and audio - Steven Pinker
- 3If you are worried about the national debt of Canada or the United States, it is not being “visited upon our children and grandchildren” as so many federal politicians have said for years and years. There are other worries with MMT (Modern Monetary Theory), such as inflation / devaluation, reserve currency etc. but this “debt” one is a huge and welcome paradigm shift!
The Deficit Myth – book and audio Stephanie Kelton
Overall the world is getting better!
Can the Hotel Exchange Group help with your hotel issues? I have put together 7 independent agents and a business broker from 8 different brokerages. Collectively over the years we have listed and sold over $365,000,000 in hotels. This past year we sold 9 hotels including three in receivership. They ranged from $550,000 to $3,100,000 in price with the per key values ranging from $17,600 to $63,250 PPK with an overall average of $35,200 PPK (rounded). Business was as brisk as it could be under 2021’s circumstances. You can put our experience, industry knowledge and network of buyers and sellers to work for you. Or, just call to chat about current conditions and the market.
These News Pieces: are provided 4-6 times per year on a periodic basis when appropriate to ideally provide useful and hopefully, interesting information. If you no longer wish to receive them, please advise by return email and I will remove you from the list. Thanks for reading!
Tim Anderson
