For business travelers, the “new normal” is coming closer to reality with each passing week. New York is talking about a large-scale reopening in June, while some conferences and shows originally set for September and October have announced their intention to go on as planned.
But what level of service and amenities can be expected from the upscale, upper-upscale, and luxury hotels that most often host meeting attendees? To minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission, properties are cutting services requiring a personal touch and modifying other services to be automated. This article from CNN details how various hotel brands are creating the “new normal” for those traveling over the next year, and maybe even longer.
But this development raises an interesting question: Will hotel rates at upper-upscale and luxury hotels, where high-touch services and amenities are most abundant, remain near their pre-pandemic levels even though the experience will be tangibly different?
