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How COVID has changed the lives of hospitality professionals for the better.
You probably don’t need any additional insights into how the pandemic has affected hospitality for the worse. Furloughs, layoffs, closings — you’ve been living the bad news for more than a year now.
Without discounting the pain and uncertainty that too much of our industry is still facing, it’s important also to look for the ways that the COVID crisis has helped us, directly or indirectly. This is something HSMAI has been tracking since the beginning; we’ve regularly polled our expert communities — including our advisory boards and Executive Roundtables — on the positive outcomes they’ve seen in adapting and responding to the pandemic.
Most often, those conversations have focused on professional strategies. But at our most recent series of Executive Roundtable programs — bringing together leaders in hotel sales, marketing, revenue optimization, loyalty, and technology from brands and HMCs — we asked participants: “In the last year, what new belief, behavior, or habit has most improved your life?” Their answers show how closely work and home life have become intertwined, and what hospitality professionals have done to better enforce boundaries between the two, in the process changing their lives for the better.
Here are key responses from all eight Executive Roundtables:
As with everything related to the pandemic, we have no idea which of these changes will have a lasting or even permanent impact on the industry. But we can hope that a renewed focus on personal wellbeing is less than temporary.