AHLA Report – Industry Revenues In 2021 Likely to Be Down $59 Billion

AHLA and Kalibri Labs have released a new report which states that the hospitality industry will end the year 2021 $59 billion less in travel revenues compared to 2019. This comes after 2020 saw the industry losing nearly $49 billion dollar in travel revenue.

Business travel, which includes corporate, group, government and other commercially motivated travel, happens to be the largest source of revenue for the hospitality. Since the onset of the pandemic, travel has declined severely, specially business travel.

Business travel is not expected to pre-pandemic levels until 2024. A recent survey by AHLA had pointed to the fact that many business travelers were cancelling their tours due to rise of new Covid19 cases, specially involving the Delta variant.

Many business events have been cancelled or postponed since 2020 due. This has had a very big impact on the hotel industry’s revenues, with risk to millions of jobs as the industry still reels with business decline.

Hotels are expected to end 2021 down nearly 500,000 jobs compared to 2019. While many industries are experiencing good recovery, the hospitality sector is still struggling. There has been an increase in leisure travel, which is a welcome sign for the industry but business travel needs to improve dramatically too before the industry can heave a sigh of relief.

Covid19 had the worst economic impact in the history of the American hotel industry. “While some industries have started rebounding from the pandemic, this report is a sobering reminder that hotels and hotel employees are still struggling,” said Chip Rogers, president and CEO of AHLA