Despite an uptick in travel unseen since the onset of the pandemic, hotels in the Dallas area are still experiencing recession-like business conditions, according to a recent report from the American Hotel and Lodging Association.
“While some industries are starting to rebound as COVID-19 restrictions ease across the country, the U.S. hotel industry is still in a recession, with the hardest-hit markets in a depression,” AHLA president and CEO Chip Rogers said in a statement.
While leisure travel is returning, the recovery of corporate travel is expected to be slow, according to the organization.
That’s being felt from downtown Dallas to Plano and even Frisco. Hotels operating in the Dallas area took in 23% less revenue per available room in May compared with pre-pandemic numbers. And 14 other major cities are also experiencing recession levels of revenue.
In total, 21 of the top 25 hotel markets in the U.S. are in either a recession or depression.
Tampa and Miami are the only two markets seeing revenue above pre-pandemic levels, and the Phoenix market is stabilizing. But San Francisco, Boston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C., are still earning more than 50% less revenue per available room compared with 2019, according to the report.
Ryman Hospitality Properties, which owns the Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine, is forecasting that its hotels and resorts will gain momentum in corporate travel in the second quarter of the year. The company also owns hotel properties in other states as well as the Grand Ole Opry and Ryman Auditorium entertainment venues in Nashville.
“It is our strong belief that over the coming months, consumers across this nation will be returning to the things they love, be they conventions, vacations, concerts or watching their favorite sports teams,” the chairman and CEO of Ryman Hospitality Properties, Colin Reed, wrote in a June letter to shareholders.
About 45% of rooms booked across Ryman’s hotels for the second half of 2021 are corporate travel bookings, which is still below the 53% seen in 2019 before the pandemic. The company was burning about $10 million in cash per month for the past several months but expects to be cash flow positive in June. By 2022, the company’s bookings are expected to look more similar to pre-pandemic levels.
Dallas-based Ashford Hospitality Trust recorded a $3.7 million loss on its seven hotels in the Dallas-Fort Worth metro area through the first three months of 2021. The company’s portfolio includes the Embassy Suites Dallas, Courtyard Legacy Park in Plano and the Marriott at DFW Airport.
This week, the company reported that it expects to see revenue per available room across all of its hotels increase more than 300% year over year in the second quarter, but it will still be well below 2019 levels.
Ashford Trust’s president and chief executive officer, Rob Hays, attributed the expected increase in revenue to the uptick seen in leisure travel.
AHLA projects that business events and conventions won’t return to normal levels until at least 2023. The industry association and hospitality workers union UNITE HERE seized on the discouraging report to push members of Congress to pass targeted aid for the struggling hotel and lodging industry.
The sector shed more jobs than almost any other in the Dallas-Fort Worth region as the pandemic altered consumers’ habits and forced businesses to halt corporate events and travel.
“While many other hard-hit industries have received targeted federal relief, the hotel industry has not. We need Congress to pass the bipartisan Save Hotel Jobs Act so hotels in the hardest-hit regions, especially urban markets, can retain and rehire employees until travel demand, especially business travel, comes back to pre-pandemic levels,” Rogers said.
