COVID-19 live blog roundup: hotel projects status in the Americas

(Photo from Unsplash by Kelly Sikkema)

We summarise updates shared on the TOPHOTELNEWS Covid19 live blog to draw a picture of how the Americas region’s hotel projects industry is negotiating the ongoing crisis.

The international hospitality industry has been sent into a tailspin with the sudden onslaught of the coronavirus crisis. From lockdowns to travel bans and border closures, hotels, bars and restaurants are having to navigate more uncertain waters than ever before. TOPHOTELPROJECTS has been tracking in real-time the developments within the industry as it reacts to the continuing crisis, and we recap some of the recent activity that has been happening in the Americas in response to the pandemic.

The good

It’s a mixed bag across the Americas region in terms of governments’ reactions to the coronavirus pandemic. In the US, protestors are demanding the opening up of societies and economies, while governors race to supply hospitals with much needed safety and life saving equipment. In South America, Brazil’s president is very much in the Covid19 denial camp, and Cuba is sending doctors as far afield as Russia to help. However, there are some beacons of hope across the region in the form of planned openings, like the Little Palm Island Resort and Spa in Florida, as well as the opening of the 90-key Hampton Inn & Suites Tampa Riverview Brandon. In Mexico, the tourism board has developed a certification that will apply to hotels that have been deemed Covid19 free. This is also a move that French hotel group Accor is pressing forward within Europe.

Some other hotels that have opened in the US are the Hyatt House Nashville Downtown, The Redbury in New York, Homewood Suites by Hilton Summerville and the Hampton Inn Eden Prairie Minneapolis.

The bad

Many countries in the Americas are steeling themselves against more serious outbreaks that are expected to take place. To combat this, some countries have taken extreme measures to stop the virus in its tracks, such as Argentina, whose government recently issued a decree banning the sale of all commercial flights both internally and internationally. Smaller island nations, like those in the Caribbean and Pacific, are likely to be the most hard hit by the virus, and these islands rely heavily on tourism as a mainstay of the economy. A recent UN report detailed how hard and in what ways these nations will suffer.

As in other regions around the world, the Americas is also experiencing the postponement of various hotel openings as lockdown measures remain in place for the foreseeable future. Most hotels in North America, however, have pushed their openings to June 2020, a reassuring date for those in the industry in that region. The opening of the 500-key Dreams Macao Beach Punta Cana has been postponed until July, and the Sheraton Denver Downtown has stopped receiving guests altogether, shutting its doors to the public.