Marriott to furlough tens of thousands of workers as COVID-19 batters hotel industry
 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...19/5068070002/

Guess it was expected...

Marriott International is poised to place tens of thousands of employees on furlough as the hotel giant reels from the coronavirus outbreak, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

expected and we'll see more of this, unfortunately

And yet, I'm not seeing any kind of price cuts to attract people to their hotels. Still charging destination/resort fees, still charging $70+ dollars per day for parking.

Across many different businesses and industries...

Regards

Most rational people won't travel, even for free right now. Even if everything is "clean and safe" and you take the best of precautions, there's nothing to do when you get to where you're going, other than order food from an app, and take an isolated walk.

You can't even plan anything for the foreseeable future at the moment with any certainty that lodging will be open and that the flight options won't disappear. Better just to stay home.

As someone who lives in hotels, I was initially surprised by that too, but on reflection, I think it is profit maximizing for hotels to not lower rates. You're not going to materially stimulate demand in this environment, so you're really only going to get people who need to travel regardless of cost. Might as well charge a lot (provided other properties continue to do that too).

No thanks. I have no idea if the person preparing the food is infected but not having any symptoms, nor do I know if delivery driver is sick. Their have been enough reports of delivery drivers sneaking part of your meal if they get hungry. I am cooking everything now.

Why should they? Marriott could give away hotel rooms for free right now and still have a hard time filling them, but they'd still have to pay their staff.

I feel bad for all the people that are about to lose their income, but Marriott is making a smart business decision, and if the quarantines and flight restrictions continue for longer than anticipated I suspect we'll see other hoteliers follow suit.

So, they are furloughing the hourly and some salary workers at the properties they manage. To my knowledge, they are an asset light company now, so they do not own the Hotels.
Does this mean that those employees are only from the properties that the owners gave them via management contracts?
Now imagine all other properties they brand but do not manage. Those are not coutned here :(
How about laying off some people at corporate too?

This virus is just crushing the tourism industry ...

My point is that if you are staying in a hotel, at any price, or no price at all, there aren't many options for food right now.

Is this an observation or a criticism?

As others noted this isn't an econ101 moment where dropping price will stimulate demand? Vacancy at hotels/restaurants/airplanes are likely high for those that can be opened. No amount of price reduction will stimulate demand, actually with low demand, any business they get is likely NOT price sensitive and the rational thing for the business to do is hike prices to maximize revenue for their fixed cost.

I cancelled all of my upcoming trips that I booked in early January. I was going to wait and see but restaurants closing or going takeout only was the line to click the cancel buttons. I went through to see what the current going rates were with all of the current situation and saw that room rates, destination fees and high daily parking fees haven't budged.

my guess is that these wont budge for a while ... until the significant lowered demand gets translated through thee economy ... and for some companies they will go straight to default others may accommodate the lower demand with lower prices....

Shame on Marriott for how they treat their loyalty members and their employees. I stayed a "free" night at a hotel in LA a few weeks ago and walked out with a $90 bill ($45 for parking and $45 for a 'resort' fee). I was there for 10 hours to sleep and go out to an evening event.