While the AHLA’s “Safe Stay” initiative represented a new level of focus on transient lodging facility sanitation, there is no universally accepted way to clean a hotel guest room and there apparently remains no shortage of hotels that continue to fail to meet the challenge of cleanliness.
While the post-COVID-19 environment may meaningfully reduce demand for commercial real estate including hotels, past downturns no matter how painful, have always been followed by recoveries during which new highs were achieved for both rental rates as well as property valuations.
There can be only one market value, and the method employed to determine such must be the same under any circumstance, including property tax appeals.
Hotel owners and financiers are confronting the phase-out of a longstanding interest rate benchmark as they address the impact the pandemic has had on borrowers’ ability to repay loans.
The lodging sector continues to introduce an endless array of categories and choices resulting in overwhelming consumer bewilderment, and the simple fact is there are too many hotel brands.
Overall, Cape Cod will continue to offer many of the features sought by guests to bed and breakfast inns, and innkeepers will continue to provide these guests with an alternative lodging experience. However, with increased competition from private home rentals, innkeepers will need to be creative in order to maintain overall RevPAR and profitability levels.
Despite the plethora of bad news there are also several reasons for optimism.
Downturn lesson number one is that lodging sector sponsors should, if necessary, be ready, willing and able to have the wherewithal to invest for the long term, as anything less is akin to playing with fire.
Hotel owners who perceive the pandemic will automatically result in a decline to property tax burdens need to think twice.
Although the lodging industry has traditionally committed to cleanliness and safety, the fact is that sanitary issues at many types of lodging facilities have been a challenge for a long time.