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Staffing issues in the hospitality industry remain the top concern for the Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association, said Matthias Kammerer, its new board chairman, as tourism recovery trends show optimism for later this year.
A Florida visitor estimates and travel industry trends report from Visit Florida, the state’s official tourism marketing corporation, released Feb. 15, indicated that during the last quarter of last year, 30.9 million visitors came to Florida, a 61.9% increase since 2020 and a 0.2% increase since 2019. The report said 94% of those visitors came domestically and 6% internationally.
Florida hotel room sales were up 52.9% in the last quarter of last year since the last quarter of 2020 but remaining down 0.6% from 2019. Occupancy rates increased 42% to hit 64.9% from the pandemic year, and average daily rate increased 43.8% at $163.57, according to the Visit Florida report.
While hotels are getting higher occupancy, a shortage of staff is creating a challenge for them, said Mr. Kammerer, “not just finding people willing to work in the hospitality industry but finding the talent that allows us to deliver our various service promises to deal with the demand that we’re currently experiencing,” he said. “Now, that’s a wonderful problem to have. Hospitality and tourism in Miami are as strong as they have ever been, so the demand is there.”
According to a report by the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) and Kalibri Labs, nationwide 2021 was projected to end the year with a loss of $5.3 billion in business travel revenue compared to 2019. In Florida, while hotel occupancy is resurging, “full comparative revenue is not expected to reach pre-pandemic levels until 2024,” Florida Trend reported.
A state-by-state job loss report by AHLA showed that Florida is expected to have lost around 44,356 jobs in the hotel industry due to covid-19-related issues since the start of the pandemic, a 21.5% reduction in employment there.
Data from the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that 4.5 million people quit their jobs last November.
“At the very offset, what we did was a matter of pure survival,” said Mr. Kammerer: “shut down your business, stop operating, take immediate tasks to mitigate the loss of revenue, cut costs so that when this is behind us, we could still be here.”
After having spent 16 years as an active board member of the Greater Miami and the Beaches Hotel Association (GMBHA), Mr. Kammerer, who is The Biltmore Hotel’s managing director, was announced as chairman of the hotel association’s board of directors on March 1, replacing Florencia Tabeni, who had served since 2019. Ms. Tabeni will continue to be part of the hotel association as a board member.
“Our initial plans really are getting back to normal,” he said about his new role. “In average, the association has put on 45 big events a year, from breakfasts to lunch or evening networking events, to educational workshops, seminars, panel discussions, promoting knowledge best practices.”
By definition, hospitality is a people industry, he said, “and while we have done the best to maintain scheduled programming, the vast majority of it took place on Zoom, and we are all zoomed out to some extent, but the people’s industry works at its best when we have face-to-face events.”
Some events coming up are the GMBHA’s 26th Inn Key Awards Luncheon on June 6, where the association is to recognize over 380 employees in the hospitality industry. “It’s one of the largest events of its kind,” said Mr. Kammerer. “Well over 950 people from community and industry leaders, all the way down to the employees that make it all happen, come together and celebrate the best of the best.”
“Bringing these people back together, doing business face-to-face, is going to be a main focus this year,” he said. “Covid-19 led us all to reflect – not just personally, but every business – on how we do business. I think we all are making great changes, providing more life-work balance, better pay and better hours [for hospitality workers], and I feel very optimistic that the industry is going to be bouncing back, and better than it was before.”
https://www.miamitodaynews.com/2022/03/29/miami-hotels-scramble-to-find-staff/
