C2 The BulleTin • Sunday, May 23, 2021
As the tourism industry returns,
3 MILLION WORKERS
WAIT FOR A CALLBACK
13.8
million
BY JONATHAN O’CONNELL
The Washington Post
usiness is rebounding quickly
across the country at hotels,
restaurants and airlines, but
millions of employees have been left
behind as companies seek to lock in
pandemic changes to their models
and slash labor costs in the future.
For a year, hotels, airlines, casinos
and restaurants — at least those that
remained in business — have made
do with far fewer workers, often well
under half of the number they em-
ployed before the pandemic. Custom-
ers have adjusted, with hotel guests
checking themselves in on mobile
apps and restaurant patrons content
with picking up takeout.
Employment has begun to recover,
with 13.8 million people employed
in leisure and hospitality jobs this
March, according to the Bureau of La-
bor Statistics. That’s up from 8.7 mil-
lion last April after mass layoffs took
place.
But that’s still 3 million jobs short
of where the industry was before the
pandemic, and it remains to be seen
how many of the industry’s still out-
of-work employees will get a call back
with business and international travel
to the United States still nearly nonex-
istent. And some large employers are
signaling they plan to make do with
fewer employees as they experiment
with new business models that allow
them to cut labor costs.
Hilton’s chief executive said recently
he’s focused on reducing labor costs at
the chain’s 6,400 hotels.
“The work we’re doing right now in
every one of our brands is about mak-
ing them higher-margin businesses
and creating more labor efficiencies,”
Hilton chief executive Chris Nassetta
told investors in February. “When we
get out of the crisis, those businesses
will be higher-margin and require less
labor than they did pre-COVID.”
The world’s largest hotel chain,
Marriott, is testing “contactless arrival
10,000 people as customers return to
indoor eating. Amusement parks are
hiring thousands of seasonal workers.
But enough companies have used
the pandemic to refine technologies
and practices in order to serve cus-
tomers with fewer people that laid-
off workers are wondering whether
they’ll ever get the call to come back.
Nely Reinante is a 45-year-old
mother of three living in one of the
nation’s tourism hot spots, Hawaii. A
Filipino American, she has 10 years
of experience as
a housekeeper,
including three
years at the
Hilton Hawai-
ian Village, in
Waikiki, where
Number of
employed in leisure
she worked until
and hospitality jobs
the pandemic ar-
in March, up from
rived.
8.7 million a year
She said she
before but still
often cleaned 10
3 million short of
to 15 rooms a day
pre-pandemic
and felt she was a
levels
big part of mak-
ing hotel guests
feel welcome.
“Our guests pay hundreds of dollars
every night they stay. They deserve to
get the best experience and the best
service,” she said. “They are coming to
enjoy the special treatment of Hawaii.”
B
Matt McClain/The Washington Post
Wanda Barnes works in a renovated lobby at the Ven at Embassy Row in Washington, D.C., in March.
kiosks” at hotels in New York, Loui-
siana and Miami, along with colossal
vending machines to replace conve-
nience stores.
‘Contact-lite’
Only time will tell what long-term
effect such changes will have on jobs.
Hilton spokesman Nigel Glennie said
that “the one thing we know for sure
is that Hilton is a business of people
serving people.” Marriott spokes-
woman Connie Kim said the compa-
ny’s kiosks “will not impact staffing
levels.”
“The new technology provides flex-
ibility for guests who prefer to stay
contact-lite, while maintaining the op-
tion to be serviced by a hotel associate
one-on-one if needed,” she said.
How many of these changes will
become widespread is unclear. What’s
certain is that the $1 trillion tourism
and travel industry, which was among
the hardest hit of all sectors of the U.S.
economy, is now seeing growth as
housebound travelers, flush with sav-
ings, reemerge.
During the first week of April,
more than 10 million travelers passed
through security at American airports,
12 times the number during the same
week last year, according to the Trans-
portation Security Administration.
People are heading south in par-
ticular, where they are finding warm
weather and less restrictive health
protocols. Among the top 25 U.S.
markets, hotels that are open in
Tampa (82%) and Phoenix (77%) re-
ported the highest March occupancy
levels. The lowest were Boston (39%)
and Minneapolis (38%), according to
the data firm STR.
“Spring has been good in Florida
and Texas,” said STR’s Jan Freitag.
The number of visitors to Las Ve-
gas has risen three straight months,
according to the city’s tourism agency.
Gambling revenue on the Strip was
up 8% in February over January and
probably will rise further after Nevada
raised capacity limits on March 15.
“I think the propensity and desire to
travel is still real — people want to get
out and about,” said analyst Michael
Bellisario of Robert W. Baird and Co.
The reopening has prompted
acute hiring blitzes. United Airlines
reopened its flight training school
on April 6 in expectation of need-
ing more pilots. The IHOP chain
announced plans to hire as many as
Layoffs stretch
Some high-end hotels are only
cleaning rooms every other night, in-
stead of nightly. Such a change could
result in the hotel employing half the
number of housekeeping staff, jobs
that are typically filled by women of
color, including many immigrants.
Nationally that would mean the per-
manent loss of millions of jobs.
Reinante said she thinks the hotel
has hired less than half of the roughly
700 housekeeping staff it used to have.
If she cannot return to work soon,
she said, her family of five may have
to give up their apartment and move
into a two-bedroom unit where her
sister-in-law lives.
“If we are not called back then we
will be permanently laid off,” she said.
A permanent slimming of staff will
only work for businesses if their cus-
tomers are OK with it. Millions of un-
employed service workers are hoping
that’s true.
“If you go somewhere, you want
your house to be clean when you
come back. Same with guests,” says
Reinante.
But she still hasn’t gotten the call to
come back.