Skift Travel News Blog

The U.S. hotel sector will this year finally surpass 2019 levels on a few performance metrics, according to research commissioned by the country’s largest hotel lobby.

U.S. hotels will see gains in occupancy, inflation-adjusted revenue figures, and staffing levels in 2023, according to a report published on Monday by the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) and based on forecasts by the consultancy Oxford Economics with data from CoStar’s STR.

Here are some key quotes:

• 2023 nominal room revenue is projected to be $197.48 billion, versus $170.35 billion in 2019. But these numbers are not adjusted for inflation, and real revenue recovery will likely take several more years.

• Average hotel occupancy is expected to reach 63.8 percent in 2023 — just shy of 2019’s 65.9 percent.

• 2023 room-night demand is forecast to be 1.3 billion occupied room nights versus 1.29 billion in 2019.

• U.S. hotels are projected to employ 2.09 million people in 2023, down from 2.35 million in 2019.

Heavily-understaffed European hotel brands are now scrambling to hire workers, left with applicants with no experience or even no track record, according to Reuters.

Accor needs 35,000 employees in the 110 countries that it operates in. The hotel brand has been conducting trial initiatives to recruit people who have never worked in the industry, Reuters quoted CEO Sebastien Bazin as saying.

Accor had also announced that it would be recruiting 12,000 overseas temporary employees to operate its temporary housing units for the Qatar World Cup.

IHG Hotels & Resorts faces a 20 to 25 percent staff shortage, according to Keith Barr its CEO.

Widespread job vacancies and upward pressure on labour costs in UK’s hospitality sector had been highlighted by a CGA survey in April. The survey cited staffing issues as a major reason for impeding hospitality’s recovery from Covid-19.

Hospitality staff, who had been furloughed or terminated during Covid, have found better paying jobs in other industries and are no longer keen to return, aggravating the staffing crisis.

Further afield in the U.S., nearly all hotels are experiencing staffing shortages, and half report being severely understaffed, according to a new survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association. Some 97 percent of respondents are experiencing a staffing shortage, 49 percent severely so. The most critical staffing need was housekeeping, with 58 percent ranking it as their biggest challenge.

As travel comes back with a bang, airports and airlines have also been struggling with staffing issues contributing to the chaos for travelers.

In a bid to address the labor shortage at airports, the UK is speeding up national security checks for new airport workers. German airports, on the other hand, will be filling staff shortages by hiring temporary workers from Turkey.

The UK government is accelerating national security checks for new airport employees to tackle staffing shortages that have contributed to a chaotic summer for travelers in the country and throughout Europe.

The country has sped up the vetting process all new aviation recruits must undergo, with accreditation checks being completed on average within five days and counter-terrorist checks taking less than 10 days — half of the average in March, according to the Department of Transport.

Staffing shortages have driven London’s Gatwick and Heathrow Airports to limit the flights the number during the summer travel season to avoid overcrowding. In addition, UK Transport Secretary Grant Shapps has told airlines to stop selling tickets for flights they cannot staff.