Business Travel, Conventions, Office Occupancy Stuck in Collapse: Been so Long, People Forgot What Old Normal Was, by Wolf Richter

Covid has changed the way business operates, probably for good. From Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com:

Hotel business travel revenues expected to be down by 80% at top 20 destinations in 2021.

By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

Even as American leisure travelers have been out in force, for US hotels, the all-important and lucrative business travel revenues – corporate, group, government, and other commercial travel – are expected to be down by $59 billion in 2021 from 2019, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) and Kalibri Labs today.

For the 20 largest destinations in the US, hotel business travel revenues are expected to collapse by 80% from $38 billion in 2019 to $7.6 billion in 2021, according to AHLA data.

The largest destination, the New York City metro, is expected to see an 88% collapse in annual hotel business travel revenues, from $4.6 billion in 2019 to a projected $531 million in 2021.

In Orlando, the second largest destination in 2019, annual hotel business travel revenues are expected to collapse by 81%, from $2.8 billion in 2019 to a projected $518 million in 2021.

The third largest destination, the Washington D.C. metro, is expected to see an 86% collapse in hotel business travel revenues, from $2.7 billion in 2019 to $371 million in 2021.

These are the largest 20 destinations by business travel hotel revenues in 2019, the projected year-total revenues for 2021, and the percentage difference:

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