Travel Safe Enables Safe Stay: The Industry Comes Together to Combat COVID-19

Presenters:

• David Chestler, Partner and Senior Managing Director, PROVision Partners International (Moderator)
• Patu Bhakta, Director, Distribution and Content, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts
• Rainer Gruber, EVP, Sales & Account Management, Pegasus
• Annette Hayes, Manager, Third Party Distribution, Choice Hotels International
• Ahren Starr, Senior Manager, Content Distribution, Marriott International

In August 2020, the American Hotel and Lodging Association reported, "frequent travelers most often chose cleanliness as the most important factor when determining their next hotel stay." The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly changed priorities for travelers, and our industry needs to adapt to provide guests the services and information they need to feel secure and travel with confidence. The key factors to address this situation come down to communication and transparency.

For this purpose, HTNG, HEDNA and the OpenTravel Alliance established an industry Travel Safe Workgroup. Combining input from hotels, distributors and hospitality industry stakeholders, this workgroup generated sets of generic questions and information points to address travelers' concerns regarding health and safety throughout guest rooms, common areas, meeting spaces, and other amenities. Adopting these hotel property recommendations will help provide guests the information they desire in order to travel safely with confidence.

In this webinar, workgroup members shared the group's findings and next steps to help implement these best practices.