Skip to content
MarketScale
‹ Back to IndustriesHospitality

With No End to the Pandemic in Sight What Can Hotels Expect?: Say Yes To Travel

On this episode of Say Yes To Travel, host Sarah Dandashy sat down with Calvin Tilokee, the Director of Revenue Management at a 5 star boutique hotel in New York City to discuss the current state of the hotel industry. Numbers are down everywhere, but major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago have been hit…

This story was produced through MarketScale. See how Hospitality teams put it to work with Executive Thought Leadership.

Share
With No End to the Pandemic in Sight What Can Hotels Expect?: Say Yes To Travel

Get featured

Want to get featured in MarketScale Hospitality?

Create a free MarketScale workspace and get your company's expertise featured across our Hospitality coverage. No credit card, no demo required.

Request an invite

On this episode of Say Yes To Travel, host Sarah Dandashy sat down with Calvin Tilokee, the Director of Revenue Management at a 5 star boutique hotel in New York City to discuss the current state of the hotel industry. Numbers are down everywhere, but major cities like New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago have been hit particularly hard. With a good number of hotels opting to close, the few that remain open are seeing anywhere from 5-11% occupancies. These numbers are unprecedented! Some hotels have laid off their employees, others have been furloughed, and there are a few that are able to make sure with a bare minimum.

With no end of the Stay at Home mandate in sight, this is a scary time for hoteliers. What does the future hold? How will things change? What can we expect? Though there is some speculation on how this all will play out, with a long 18 month recovery, there is still much that is up in the air. Calvin shares his insights on what lessons we can learn from Covid-19.

The travel and tourism sector makes up 1/10th of the global job market. The hit is taking will inevitably have a huge economic impact that will take years to fully recover.

Regardless of when we are able to go back to work, this will be a slow climb back to the bustling travel world we once knew–anywhere from 18-24 months.

New protocols will likely develop from this, especially new cleaning requirements and possible hybrid roles to cut costs until occupancy comes back.

Business travelers will be the first to get back on the road and travel. Leisure travelers, influenced by financial struggles and COVID-19 wariness, will trickle back into the market.

It is safe to assume that domestic travel and roadtrips will be popular in the months after resolving the Pandemic.

Say Yes To Travel has a new episode every Thursday!

Your experts belong here

Every story in MarketScale Hospitality starts with a company putting its general managers, operations leads, and brand teams on the record. Buyers are already reading this topic. The only question is whose experts they find.

Owners and operators buy from people who understand the property, and your teams prove it in their own words.

Get your team featuredSee how it works15 minutes, straight to a calendar.

Follow Hospitality Insights

Get new expert content in your inbox.

Hospitality: are you visible to AI?

Before they reach out, Hospitality buyers ask AI engines which vendors to trust. See how AI describes your company today, and where competitors show up instead.

Free plan

You just read one Hospitality expert. Your company is full of them.

This article was produced through MarketScale. The same platform turns your general managers, operations leads, and brand teams into the articles, video, and social content Hospitality buyers are searching for. Create a free workspace and see it with your own people. No credit card, no demo required.

NPS +73 · 1,000+ creators · 38+ countries

What you get, free

Your own MarketScale workspace, up to 10 people
One professional video edit a month for qualifying companies
Media requests to your crowd, remote recording, AI writing tools
$0, no credit card, nothing that expires

More Hospitality Insights

More than half of hotels are still short-staffed despite 70% raising pay

More than half of hotels are still short-staffed despite 70% raising pay

AHLA's March 2026 survey of 246 hotel owners found more than half understaffed even though 70% are offering higher wages. Cost of goods and supplies (71%) outranked labor costs (65%) as the most cited financial pressure.

  • 01Cost of goods and supplies (71%) outranked labor costs (65%) among hotel owners' most frequently cited financial pressures in AHLA's 2026 survey.
  • 02Higher wages are offered by 70% of surveyed hotels; a separate AHLA and Hireology survey fielded between Dec. 6, 2024, and Jan. 3, 2025, put that figure at 47%.
  • 03Some 39% of owners expect 2026 demand to remain relatively stable compared with 2025, 29% expect it to be somewhat stronger and only 6% expect it to be much stronger.

Sep 14, 2026

65% of North American hotels reported staffing shortages in 2025 as AI moves into ops

65% of North American hotels reported staffing shortages in 2025 as AI moves into ops

A BCG and NYU SPS analysis says 65% of North American hotels reported staffing shortages in 2025. Labor costs rose 11.2% year over year. The report says hotel discovery is shifting to AI assistants, pushing operators to build machine-readable content and integrated data.

  • 01If AI assistants surface only a short list of hotels, content and rate shopping shifts from “best page” SEO to “best answer” data hygiene across channels.
  • 02The biggest blocker to scaling AI in hotels is still plumbing: nearly half of hoteliers report difficulty accessing critical business information, according to Hotel Management.
  • 03Operational AI claims can be tested quickly: housekeeping cycle time and food waste are already instrumented at many brands, so baselines and reporting cadence can be set in the statement of work before deploying.

Sep 13, 2026

Hotels Face Branded-Search Interception as Google Reshapes Booking

Hotels Face Branded-Search Interception as Google Reshapes Booking

Hospitality Technology reported that third-party sites bidding on hotel brand names can intercept guests before they reach a hotel's own checkout, citing Operto research. The outlet also reported that Choice Hotels enabled native checkout inside Google AI Mode while Hilton routes AI-driven searches back to Hilton.com to complete bookings.

  • 01Hospitality Technology cited Operto research finding that a competing third-party ad appears on roughly three-quarters of branded hotel searches, with an average of nine such sites bidding on a given hotel's name
  • 02The same report attributed roughly 8% of direct-booking loss to this interception, noting these bookings can be misclassified as ordinary OTA business in PMS reports
  • 03Choice Hotels announced a Google AI Mode integration allowing guests to complete bookings via Google Pay without leaving Google, according to Choice Hotels' own announcement

Sep 11, 2026

Explore More Hospitality Insights

Read more expert perspectives from across Hospitality.

Browse Hospitality Hub

For B2B teams

Your experts could be publishing here

Stories like this one run on content MarketScale captures from real practitioners. See how your team's expertise becomes coverage in Hospitality and beyond.

Book a 15-minute demo

Or call us. No forms required. We pick up. 214-945-2512