Given the significant traction in distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines throughout the United States and general international travel restrictions, leisure travel has begun to recover in 2021 and is expected to continue increasing, with Americans seeking so-called “revenge travel” to a domestic getaway. Business travel is also beginning to show signs of recovery, and some group business related to conference attendance is returning.

Eye on Saudi Arabia - Watch Hala Matar Choufany in a live interview at HORECA 2021

HVS was joined by 60 delegates in person and at least another 300 online for the latest in our series of webinars on the preparation for the industry as it emerges into the post-pandemic world.

With nearly 2,000 registered, the Lodging Conference brought together members of the hospitality industry to discuss the recovery, challenges, and successes of the industry to date. The highlights of the event from those that attended from HVS are summarized here.

In the second quarter of 2020, metro-area Omaha hotels suffered unprecedented declines in demand, similar to most cities in the United States. With the widely available vaccines and the lifting of pandemic restrictions in early 2021, we explore how the city’s recovery has begun and look at the long-term outlook for the market. We also examine recent trends in the Downtown Omaha hotel submarket relative to the overall Douglas County hotel market.

The Las Vegas market benefited from pent-up demand, government stimulus checks, limited international travel options, increased vaccination rates, and the easing of COVID-19 restrictions during the first half of 2021. However, major COVID-19 metrics notably surged during the summer, and indoor masking rules have been reimplemented in Clark County.

In Focus: Maldives 2021 provides an overview of Maldives' tourism landscape and hotel market performance, infrastructure development, workation, long-stay tourism, guest house culture, hotel transactions and investment in 2020, COVID-19 situation, outlook and crisis management.

The ALIS Conference came and went this week, bringing Downtown L.A. hotels to life with optimism and hope that normal for the hotel industry is coming in the not-too-distant future. Here are some collective takeaways from our team that was in attendance.

Similar to other urban lodging markets across the country, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on Nashville’s thriving hotel and tourism industry. With the widely available vaccines and the lifting of pandemic restrictions, we look back at the effects of the pandemic in 2020, Nashville’s burgeoning recovery in 2021, and the long-term outlook for the Music City.

The Raleigh market achieved historically high levels of economic activity and visitation in 2019. However, after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, the market suffered significant declines in business activity and hotel demand, similar to most metropolitan areas across the country. How did Raleigh sustain through the height of the pandemic? What is the market experiencing as it emerges from the pandemic, and what does the future look like for this state capital?