Hotel Solutions: COVID-19 from Survival to Recovery

Visit Isle of Man have summarised the eighth ‘From Survival to Recovery’ update from hotel and hospitality consultants Hotel Solutions.

The report provides information on how the COVID-19 crisis is affecting the UK hotel and visitor accommodation industry to help DMOs and local authority tourism teams to support their hotel and visitor accommodation businesses as the pandemic continues and the industry hopefully moves towards some form of recovery in 2021. You can view the full report here. 

• A strong recovery in staycations in rural and coastal destinations from the summer, assuming lockdown restrictions have been lifted by then;

• A slower recovery in city destinations;

• Stronger demand for non-serviced accommodation than serviced;

• Longer stays;

• Increased prices;

• A need for accommodation businesses to offer flexible cancellation terms in order to

• secure bookings;

• Greater use of contactless technology in the hotel and visitor accommodation sector;

• A need for accommodation businesses to provide reassurance that they are COVIDsafe.

• A slow recovery in inbound tourism, especially from long-haul markets.

• Trip taking intentions for the first few months (January - April) of 2021 have dropped back further.

• Longer-term consumer confidence has also dropped - Wave 23 of the VisitBritain COVID-19 Consumer Tracker saw a fall in respondents expecting things to return to close to normal by October to December 2021, from 70% in Wave 22 to 59%. 95% of Wave 23 respondents however expect things to be back to normal by 2022 onwards.

• The latest BVA BDRC Clearsight Recover & COVID-19 report (January 2021) report shows a reducing comfort gap for staying in commercial accommodation, especially hotels - with only 37% of consumers now feel comfortable about staying in a hotel, compared to 80% before the pandemic.

• Staycations will sustain their popularity.

• Rural will outpace urban growth.

• Use of travel agents will grow – as more travellers seek reassurance from experts and
  want to book with security.

• Technology will be vital – with tourism businesses and visitors making much greater use
  of digital, contactless and cashless technologies to enhance the booking process and
  visitor experience.

• Flexibility will be important – in terms of cancellation policies, options to make changes
  to bookings, and the adoption of new ideas and innovations in the design of tourism
  products and services.

• In a new report from Tripadvisor report, more than a quarter (26%) of respondents say that they would only travel to destinations that required visitors to be vaccinated before travel.

• Property management software company Guesty, found that the average length of stay in short-term rentals will increase as consumers shift from multiple short breaks to fewer trips for longer time frames. The average length of booking so far in Q1 2021 has been 9.1 days, compared to an average of 4.5 days in Q1 2020.

• Travellers will prioritise safety and cleanliness like never before – short-term rental owners will need to demonstrate that their properties are COVID-safe.

• The November 2020 edition of Glamping Business magazine found that there are likely to be fewer peaks and troughs in the UK holiday season, as continued home working will allow people without children to take more midweek breaks.

• Glamping Experts predic that travellers will be seeking out more secluded accommodation, with a surge in the popularity of activity and experiential breaks, and demand for accommodation with private facilities.

• In terms of overseas visits to the UK, VisitBritain is forecasting 16.9 million inbound visits in 2021. While this is an increase of 73% on 2020, it is less than half of the 40.9 million visits that the UK saw in 2019.

• Data from Hotel Benchmark, the benchmarking service for luxury hotels, shows a significant increase in hotel website traffic, conversions and transactions through mobile phones during the pandemic. The data clearly shows the importance of hotels ensuring that their websites are optimised for use from mobile phones.

• Sentiment in the serviced apartment sector has improved considerably since June, with 71.8% of the respondents to November’s ASAP (Association of Serviced Apartment Providers/ Savills) sentiment survey stating that they were slightly or significantly more optimistic about their business outlook over the next 12 months, compared to just 41.2% in the June survey.