Representatives from 10 THE-ICE member institutions across 7 countries joined THE-ICE Webinar Series 15: Global Hotel Industry Update – STR SHARE Center to discuss the recovery of the global hotel industry following the widespread closures and restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Thursday 28th July 2021 Mr Steve Hood, Senior Vice President and Founding Director at THE-ICE Business Alliance Partner STR SHARE Center, shared indexed hotel data and regional updates on the recovery of the global hotel industry. In addition, Mr Hood discussed research opportunities, COVID-related student project ideas, and virtual internships and student certification training.
Within these areas of discussion, the following key takeaways were highlighted:
Recovery of the global hotel industry
- Mr Hood emphasised that recovery is complicated, and that there is significant diversity in the recovery timeline between and even within regions.
- Regions are growing, declining, or holding depending on a number of factors, including travel bubbles and corridors and the tightening or loosening of restrictions, locally and nationally.
- Hotels in the pipeline put additional pressure on the recovery pace.
- Big cities have been significantly more impacted because they are more reliant on tourism and/or international arrivals, while beachside markets are recovering more quickly.
Research opportunities & student project ideas
- All the data presented during the webinar, as well as more localised and/or national data, is available for members to work with and this presents opportunities for research, including COVID-related research projects. Over 500 articles have been published using data from STR SHARE Center.
- STR SHARE Center can supply unidentified property data, and can also correlate it with third party data or survey data.
- Although there has been a decrease in academic research output during the pandemic, the opportunities for COVID-related research are vast. Mr Hood suggested a number of examples:
- Comparing different areas of the world or different types of hotels during the pandemic.
- Comparing different types of hotel business in different areas of the world and for different types of hotels during the pandemic.
- Analyse various exceptions to the “bright spots” during the pandemic.
- Comparing pandemic performance metrics to other periods of time.
- Compare government response and tourism-related interventions to performance metrics.
- Analyse events that took place in 2020 or are starting to return in 2021.
Virtual internships and student certification training
- A major focus of STR SHARE Center is helping educators by providing data to professors and students for academic research, student projects and classroom use, as well as supporting virtual internships.
- Not all destinations or hotels are created equal, especially in the leisure market, and it is important for students to understand that not the whole industry is suffering or recovering in the same way.
- STR SHARE Center’s Certification in Hotel Industry Analytics (CHIA) and Certification in Advanced Hospitality and Tourism Analytics (CAHTA) are industry recognised stamps of approval that students can add to their resumes and business cards. STR SHARE Center provides everything required to deliver these certifications to students – a full training package, online videos, and free train-the-trainer sessions.
The recording of the webinar can be accessed here.
For information about upcoming webinars in THE-ICE COVID-19 webinar series, click here.