Excerpt from CoStar
The availability and cost of labor rank as the biggest issues for hotel owners, according to a new survey from the Hospitality Asset Managers Association.
Speaking with Hotel News Now at the association's spring conference, members of the HAMA board of directors said labor problems have been fueled by workers moving out of hotels and into other industries entirely.
Derrick Yee, vice president of asset management for aparthotel company Placemakr, said the industry was suffering labor shortages prior to the pandemic, but they were mostly limited and manageable. Now the problem is broad and the math doesn't work out well for hotels.
"We just have more jobs but fewer people," he said. "So we need to attract them. We also probably need to talk about immigration. We have a lot less people coming into the country that would probably be interested in taking some of our jobs."
In the survey, roughly 90% of respondents ranked "labor availability" as one of the top three challenges in the industry, followed by wage increases (70%), supply-chain disruption (62%) and demand growth in a distant fourth place (40%).
Less than 5% ranked brand costs as a top issue, although that has been viewed as a pressing concern for HAMA members in previous years.
While the limited availability and the high cost of labor are obviously related, HAMA board members said the solution to the problem isn't simply higher pay.
"Increasing the wages hasn't driven people to these jobs," said Carly Thorp, vice president of asset management for Colorado-based real estate development and investment firm McWhinney.
Chad Sorensen, managing director and executive vice president of Beverly, Massachusetts-based asset management company CHMWarnick, agreed.
"That was the solution we tried to apply, higher wage rates," he said. "What we ended up with was the same level of open positions and employees that are getting paid more."
He said labor shortages need to be a top issue not just for owners but for hotel brands that are hoping to retain a favorable outlook from consumers.
"We're almost at a flash point here with the brands trying to recover their customer service scores," he said.
While many guest services were scaled back during the pandemic, including the frequency of housekeeping, guests are increasing and expecting a pre-pandemic level of service.
"So it's not just the lack of labor, but it's how do you balance that with what the consumer is telling us," he said. "And the brands don't seem to be aligned in how they're approaching that, which from an ownership perspective is really troubling."
Dina Winder, senior vice president of asset management for Highgate, echoed a sentiment shared by many in the hotel industry right now that employees need to see working in hotels promises more than just a low-wage, dead-end job.
"We need to showcase how you can progress and how you can develop in this industry," she said.
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