Skip the lines and get a COVID-19 test at your hotel
(This is a slightly different version of our story for NBC News)
You may not be able to work out in hotel gyms or hang out in lobby bars just yet. But at an increasing number of hotels, guests can now get COVID-19 tests as part of their stay.
The tests are offered in partnership with a local laboratory or medical company and at an extra, sometimes hefty expense. But now that a negative COVID-19 test is required for crossing many state and country borders, hotels hoping to stand-out are adding medical testing to their list of amenities.
Results before you fly
“Test and Rest” packages starting at about $240 at the Sofitel Heathrow and about $200 at the Sofitel Gatwick allows guests to check-in and take a self-administered saliva COVID-19 test from a kit.
Twice a day, the hotel sends test samples via courier to a HALO testing laboratory. Results, plus a certificate to be printed at reception, are emailed to guests so they can go from the airport hotel to the plane.
“It seemed to be the right thing to do to both encourage travel and get people booking airport hotels again,” said Raj Shah, Commercial Director – Hotel Division of the Arora Group. The company operates several hotels at both Heathrow and Gatwick.
COVID-19 testing at resorts and boutique hotels
In Las Vegas, the REVIV wellness spa at the Cosmopolitan offers COVID-19 PCR testing ($100) with results and documents promised within 24-hours. Antibody tests ($40) are also available, with discounts offered to guests who bundle their tests with some of the spa’s treatments.
Both the W South Beach in Miami Beach and Chateau Marmont Hotel, Cottages and Bungalows in Hollywood are partnering with Sollis Health to offer guest COVID-19 PCR tests with a 24-hour turnaround. Test prices are $175 at the W South Beach and are included as part of the amenity package at Chateau Marmont, where rates start at about $475 a night.
For $299, the Nemacolin, a resort in Farmington, PA, is offering guests rapid COVID-19 tests that are analyzed on-site, with results in 15-20 minutes. “Should a positive test result occur, you will be expected to re-test immediately,” the resort tells guests.
And at the Nobu Hotel Palo Alto in California’s Silicon Valley, guests simply ask their private concierge to arrange an on-site COVID-19 test. A licensed medical professional then arrives in full personal protective equipment (PPE) to administer the test. And couriers take the samples to a certified laboratory for expedited results. The white-glove service starts at $500.
Dreaming about travel? Us too. But how will our journeys be changed by the pandemic?
(This is a slightly different version of a story we prepared for NBC News.)
Sanitizing stations, “stand here, not there” floor stickers, and cotton swabs up the nose were not part of the travel experience before the COVID-19 pandemic.
But as travelers edge their way back into airports and hotels and onto airplanes, cruise ships, and ski slopes, they will be dealing will all that – and more.
But for how long? We asked some industry experts to tell us which new travel trends, technologies, and protocols they think will stick around.
Who will travel and what will they expect?
“Businesses are connecting with their customers virtually and leisure travelers are discovering the joys of staying local,” says Chekitan Dev, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration in the SC Johnson College of Business. “Many business travelers will lower their number of trips, and leisure travelers will shift from ‘hyper-global’ to ‘hyper-local’ travel for the foreseeable future.”
For well into 2021 travelers will be expected or required to wear masks and observe physical distancing. And airlines, airports, hotels, and cruise lines will be expected to continue making health, safety, and cleanliness a priority.
“People will look at a dirty rental car or bus or airport or airline cabin or hotel room and wonder, ‘Uh oh, am I putting myself at risk?’ says Henry Harteveldt, a travel industry analyst at Atmosphere Research Group. “Travelers will continue to hold travel brands’ feet to the fire to keep their facilities clean.”
Entertainment
Once we move past this pandemic “we’re going to have amnesia about some of this and likely go back doing many of the same things we used to do before,” says Devin Liddell, futures and design strategist with Seattle-based Teague global design consultancy.
Theme parks, museums, and other attractions will reopen, and Liddell says the best operators will retain systems put in place to orchestrate the flow of people. For example, “ski resorts that require reservations will likely create a better experience for everyone on the lift lines,” he says.
Hotels
Hotels will likely maintain flexible cancellation policies and keep in place the intensive protocols for cleaning guest rooms and public spaces.
But instead of housekeeping only upon request or not at all during a stay, “elective housekeeping will be more about providing guests with an easy ‘opt-out’ of housekeeping services,” says Bjorn Hanson, adjunct Professor at New York University’s Tisch Center of Hospitality.
Cruising
Most major cruise lines are maintaining – and extending – the voluntary suspensions of sailings until sometime in 2021.
When sailings resume there will be changes onboard.
“The buffet will move away from the more traditional self-serve approach toward a more crew-served style – something that lines have already said will likely be a more permanent change,” said Colleen McDaniel, Editor-in-Chief of Cruise Critic. And “changes to muster drills could also stick around beyond the pandemic. Rather than mass events that put all passengers in small spaces at once, we’ll continue to see this more self-driven.”
Airports
At airports, “the pandemic has dramatically accelerated the adoption of countless new technologies and protocols to keep people healthy and safe and streamline the entire air travel experience,” says Kevin Burke, president and CEO of Airports Council International-North America.
“Many of these changes will outlast COVID-19,” he adds.
Those technologies and protocols include sanitizing robots, restrooms that alert maintenance crews when cleaning is needed, contactless check-in, bag check and credential authentication, and the increased ability to order and pay for food or duty-free items from a mobile device and receive a contactless delivery anywhere inside the airport.
The current pandemic will change future airports as well.
“We plan to implement many public health procedures into the design of our new terminal building,” scheduled to open in 2023 said Christina Cassotis, CEO at Pittsburgh International Airport, “It will be the first post-pandemic terminal to open in the country that will be designed with these issues in mind.”
Materials in airports are going to change, too, says Luis Vidal, president and founding partner at Luis Vidal + Architects. “The use of new photocatalytic devices based on antibacterial, antiviral, and ‘autocleaning’ material, such as titanium dioxide, silver or copper, in high-use areas will become the norm.”
Airlines
(PRNewsfoto/United Airlines)
Airlines will maintain stringent cleaning and sanitizing protocols. Generous rebooking and cancelation policies may stretch out for a while. But most airlines will soon stop blocking middle seats.
Coming back soon: the full range of in-flight services, especially at the front of the plane.
“The traveling public is not happy with the bare bones on-board experience right now,” says Harteveldt of Atmosphere Research. “They understand the need for limits, but people are saying they won’t accept paying for a premium experience and getting something that is subpar.”
Vaccines, Travel Corridors, and insurance
As the COVID-19 vaccine becomes available, it may become a ‘must-have’ for travelers.
The new normal for global travel may also include digital health passports displaying a traveler’s vaccine or negative test status and, by spring, travel corridors (also known as travel bubbles) that allow travel between countries with low COVID-19 infection rates, says Fiona Ashley, VP Product & Solution Marketing SAP Concur.
While there are some great fare deals being offered right now, as demand returns, so will higher prices. And going forward, travelers will likely need to factor in the added costs of COVID-19 tests and travel insurance.
“Travel insurance may become a non-negotiable as destinations continue to require medical insurance, and travel suppliers tighten their refund policies,” said Megan Moncrief Chief Marketing Officer of travel insurance comparison site Squaremouth
“The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted the vulnerability of the global travel industry. I think travelers will be more cautious about investing in expensive trips without insurance.”
You know that the current health crisis has caused people to cancel trips and airlines to temporarily slash flight schedules to the bone.
Here are few other measurements that underscore how bad it is right now.
TSA screening numbers hit record low
On Tuesday, April 7, the Transportation Security Administration screened just 97,310 passengers and flight crew members at all airports across the country.
That’s a record low for TSA and down 95% from the 2,091,056 passengers screened at airports a year ago on the same weekday.
BREAKING NEWS: On Tuesday, 97,130 individuals were screened at @TSA checkpoints nationwide. First time it's dipped lower than 100,000 during the pandemic. Yes, it's a record low. Exactly one year ago Tuesday, 2,091,056 people went through security checkpoints.
TSA screening officers also continue to test positive for COVID-19.
On Wednesday, April 8, TSA reported that in the previous 14 days, 43 screening officers and 7 non-screening officers who’d had limited interaction with travelers tested positive for COVID-19.
TSA is updating that list daily. The agency is also posting the airport, last day worked, checkpoint location and shift times for each TSA officer who tests positive. So you can check to see if you may have been exposed.
Hotel occupancy rates way down
Hotels around the country are experiencing shocking year-over-year declines, according to data from STR.
Comparing the week of March 29 through April 4, 2020 with the same time period last year:
Occupancy across the country is down 68.5%, to 21.6% and average daily rates (ADR) are down 41.5% to $76.51.
When you look at the Top 25, the numbers are worse:
The Top 25 markets were down over 74 %, to 19.4%, with the Oahu, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York and Seattle markets getting hammered the worst.
In some cities, hotels are renting rooms to local governments to house health care workers, first responders, military personnel, people who have been ordered to quarantine, infected patients and homeless people at risk from the virus.
Fallout from COVID-19 is happening so fast that moments before our story about hotel occupancy rates posted on CNBC we had to cut a tidbit about a hotel bar offering a creative “squirt and sip” – a squirt of hand sanitizer and a drink – because the bar had been ordered to close.
And since the story posted – on Wednesday – many more hotels around the country have closed because they had few – if any -guests.
Major hotel chains are
temporarily closing properties and seeing occupancy rates tumble as travelers
stay at home during the coronavirus outbreak.
Global hospitality
research company STR said Wednesday that for the week of March 8-14, hotel
occupancy was down 24.4% to 53% year-over-year. Meanwhile, revenue per
available room, a key industry metric, fell 32.5% to $63.74.
The numbers echo plunging demand for air travel and cruise ships as travel slows to a trickle. There have been more than 200,000 cases of the coronavirus so far, and governments are imposing restrictions to combat the spread. The United States border with Canada will temporarily close to “non-essential traffic” due to the coronavirus pandemic, the leaders of both countries said Wednesday morning.
“To no surprise, the
hurt continued and intensified for hotels around the country,” said Jan
Freitag, STR’s senior VP of lodging insights in a statement. “The performance
declines were especially pronounced in hotels that cater to meetings and group
business, which is a reflection of the latest batch of event cancellations and
government guidance to restrict the size of gatherings.”
Even before Nevada ordered the closure of casinos and other businesses, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts announced the temporary closure of their properties in Las Vegas. That includes well-known hotels like the Bellagio, MGM Grand Mandalay Bay, The Mirage and others.
Following the closure of its U.S. theme parks, Disney closed all its owned and operated hotel locations at Downtown Disney in Anaheim and Disney Springs in Orlando, beginning Tuesday. The Disney owned and operated hotels at Walt Disney World Resort and Disney’s Vero Beach Resort will close at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 20, the company said in a statement.
Home share bookings in
major cities are also feeling the pinch.
For example, Airbnb bookings for the week of March 1-7 in Rome and Beijing were down 41% and 96%, respectively, compared to bookings made January 5-11, according to AirDNA, which analyzes vacation rental data.
“2020 got off to a fast
start with our booking rate quite high in the months of January and February,”
said Jon Ingalls, an Airbnb host in Seattle, “We’ve now had cancellations for
March and have had virtually no bookings for the spring.”
Checking in? Making
sure your room is clean
If you do happen to be checking into a hotel in the near future, global and independent hotel brands such as Red Roof, Marriott International and Hilton are being proactive about sharing specifics about their cleaning efforts.
In addition to the
cleaning and disinfecting protocols used in guest rooms, Marriott is reassuring
guests that its hotels have increased the frequency of cleaning and
disinfecting in public spaces, “with a focus on the counter at the front desk,
elevators (and elevator buttons), door handles, public bathrooms and even room
keys,” the company said in a statement.
As clean as hotels say
their facilities are, when you check in you may want to do some spot cleaning
of your own, especially on the “high touch” spots housekeeping staff may have
missed and previous guests are sure to have touched. That includes door
handles, TV remote controls, lamp switches, bathroom faucets, shower soap
dispensers and the toilet flush handle.
“Hotel housekeeping may be doing a good job,” said Sheryl Kline, a professor of Hospitality Business Management at the University of Delaware who has studied hotel cleanliness, “but if you bring your own wipes you’ll know that those spots have been disinfected.”
Kline also suggests
taking bed scarves and bedspreads off hotel room beds, “because those may not
be cleaned every day.”
Spot cleaning your hotel
room is fine, but Paul Pottinger, an infectious disease specialist at UW
Medicine, the health-care system at the University of Washington in Seattle,
says the first thing to clean when you enter a hotel room is your hands, “which
may have picked up germs on your journey to the hotel, from surfaces in the
lobby and in the elevator ride up to the room.”
Need to cancel?
In general, hotels and
home share companies are being flexible with cancellations.
On Sunday, Airbnb
updated its extenuating circumstances policy regarding cancellation in response
to COVID-19 to include a full refund for guests with reservations for stays
(and Airbnb Experiences) made on or before March 14, 2020, with check-in dates
between March 14 and April 14, 2020.
IHG, which includes brands like Holiday Inn, Intercontinental, and Kimpton, is waiving cancellation fees for existing and new bookings at all its properties globally for stays through April 30, 2020.
Marriott updated its policy on March 13 to allow guests with existing reservations to cancel or make changes without charges up to 24 hours before arrival, until April 30, 2020. And on March 16, Hilton updated its policy and is now waiving fees for changes or cancellations made up to 24 hours before a scheduled arrival until April 30, 2020 as well. That includes “Advance Purchase” rates described as non-cancellable when first booked.
Given the fast-changing
nature of COVID-19 and community responses, many hotels are following the lead
of airlines and regularly updating their cancelation and refund policies, in
many cases extending the applicable dates.
The hotel concierge has been getting a makeover. Here’s our latest column for CNBC about hotels with staff on duty who will do everything from peeling your crawfish to delivering an adoptable teddy bear.
Your next hotel stay may come with a creative concierge service
Pantelis Evangelou is a guest services manager at the London Marriott Park Lane, but to young guests, he may be better known as the hotel’s teddy bear butler.
The hotel offers a teddy-bear themed concierge service to children that is included with suite bookings or available as an add-on for a fee of roughly $50. After a child chooses an option from the hotel’s menu of 11 themed bears, Evangelou arrives at the door with a stuffed animal ready for adoption.
“It’s up to me to make the introductions, which means that I need to know the names and stories behind each and every bear, as well as their unique characteristics,” he said, noting that the available bears range from airline pilots to traditional London Beefeaters, the ceremonial guardians at the Tower of London.
A concierge for every need
The hotel concierge has traditionally been the all-knowing go-to for guests seeking insider knowledge of a city and access to coveted theater tickets or dinner reservations. But now, travelers get can tips and recommendations for restaurants and attractions in a new city from their smartphones.
So rather than ditch the concierge desk completely, “hotels are now training their concierges to offer novel, customized, high value and proprietary services to delight their guests and keep them coming back,” said Chekitan Dev, a professor at Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration.
The trend comes at a time when hotels are faced with growing competition from the home-sharing industry with the likes of Airbnb and Expedia Group’s Vrbo. Offering niche services is alow-cost way to stand out to the customer and also drive additional revenue. The services can be free or cost guests up to a few hundred dollars.
Travelers booking hotel stays will now find concierge and butler services available for everything from caring for pets and choosing a cannabis experience to making a fire in the in-room fireplace.
As an example, Dev cites his stay at The Benjamin in New York City, where the sleep concierge helped him get a good night’s sleep by providing special pillows to help with back pain, a humidifier to counter dry air and a white sound machine to offset street noise.
Many other hotels are offering curated services that are equally hyper-focused and offbeat. The surf concierge at the Westin Los Angeles Airport gives surfing lessons, while a crawfish concierge offers peeling assistance duringevents at the Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans.
In Canada, the skate concierge at the Westin Ottawa leads free guided scenic skate tours along sections of the Rideau Canal Skateway, while the Fairmont Vancouver Airport’s fish valet makes sure prized catches are properly stored in a special on-site freezer during layovers.
“Specialty concierge services aren’t new,” says hotel industry analyst Bjorn Hanson, “But in the last three or four years the trend has been an increased number of categories, an increased number of hotels and resorts offering these services and an increased sophistication in how the services are delivered.”
Who is called a concierge?
The trend is also for these services to be labeled as “concierge” even though they may not be delivered by a certified concierge.
“I have no idea what a cannabis concierge or a fish concierge might be doing because we don’t see that in our organization, said Sara-ann Kasner, CEO and founder of the National Concierge Association, an industry trade group. “But I can tell you that using the title of concierge is a smart business move because people really do believe concierges have the inside scoop on everything.”
Hotels in the Raffles Hotels & Resorts chain, including locations in Paris, Istanbul, Warsaw and Jakarta, have art concierges on staff who conduct free tours of the hotels’ museum-quality art collections.
And as the curator of curiosity at Gateway Canyons Resort & Spa in Colorado, Zebulon Miracle gives history and geology tours, including dinosaur track excursions, for $35 to $250 per person.
“There are so many great stories and fascinating science found in the canyon country,” said Miracle. “If my team does their job right, guests will leave not only knowing more about the area but will also be inspired to become curious about their own homes.”
Partnerships for personalization
In some cases, hotels are partnering with other businesses to offer personalized services. In Portland, Ore., the Provenance Hotels partners with a florist to curate a menu of in-room loaner plants at its Woodlark hotel. At its Dossier property, a partnership with a local retailer allows an adventure valet to outfit guests with free loaner backpacks containing trekking poles, headlamps, waterproof phone cases and other useful hiking items.
“Naturally, with all the new hotels out there, we want to offer something new to capture guests’ attention,” said Kate Buska, Provenance Hotels vice president of brand development and communications, “But we’re not chasing the shock and awe of things like the ‘walk of shame’ kit in the honor bar. This is about service, experiences, and giving guests things they can actually use.”
Whether they hire or partner with a specialty concierge, a butler or on-site curator, “more hoteliers are finally understanding that they’re able to create exceptional unique experiences tailored to their guests’ specific interests,” said Robert Cole of global travel research company Phocuswright. “And those experiences are what drive guest satisfaction, return stays, referrals to friends and long-term loyalty.”
Bonus dividends from the concierge
At the five-star Tribe hotel in Nairobi, Kenya, the running concierge is a former world record holder in the marathon and the boxing butler is an independent coach who occasionally still competes internationally.
While the services give the hotel’s guests access to people and experiences that are representative of Kenya, “There aren’t many opportunities for retired elite athletes in Kenya,” said Shamim Ehsani, Tribe hotel co-founder, “Our concierge program respects the dignity and dedication of the athletes while giving them an opportunity to continue doing what they love well into retirement.”
“One of my favorite memories is of a young guest that was so over the moon with her new princess bear that she ran back to give me a big hug before I left,” said Evangelou, the teddy bear butler at the London Marriott. “We can only imagine what great adventures young guests will go on to experience together” with their bears.
