European Hoteliers Adapt, No Longer To Survive But To Thrive
Large Hotel Firms Have Capital To Finance Development, Shareholder Returns
Leaders of major hotel brands speaking at the Annual Hotel Conference said that as the fundamentals of the hotel industry are normalizing, hotel owners and operators are applying lessons learned during the COVID-19 pandemic to strategies to drive demand to their properties and gain market share for the brands.
Speaking at a panel titled “Succeeding When Nothing Is Normal” at the Annual Hotel Conference, Marriott International's Phil Andreopoulos said he learned during the pandemic to continually tweak delivery and operations. At Marriott, he is chief operating officer of owner and franchise services for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, as well as chief operating officer for sub-Saharan Africa and Protea, a South Africa-based hotel company Marriott acquired in 2014.
“Our adaptability was our resilience, and we’ve always challenged the status quo. If you do that in the good times, it is so much easier to do so in a downturn. We were forced to do it, and now we know how to do it,” he said.
“I have been in this industry for 30 years, and the COVID-19 era showed me I had not seen everything in that period — notably, that we were closing hotels that had been trading exceptionally well,” said Hugh Taylor, CEO of hotel-management and advisory firm Michels & Taylor. “It was also the best time to see how good your teams are."
