Omni Hotels donates to food banks when guests opt out of housekeeping

Peter Strebel, President of Omni Hotels & Resorts, appears on Yahoo Finance Live to discuss how the high-end hotel industry is coping with COVID-19 fears and short staffing at a time when people are still traveling for leisure.

Video transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: All right. When we talk about COVID-19, there is a lot of pent up demand for Americans to hit the road, go on vacation. Just look at the TSA numbers. And they really have been-- they're below 2019, but only by the same number of business travelers. People even with the Omicron variant, they are traveling. And they are going to luxury resorts. And what could be better than planting in an Omni Hotel or resort, sitting back, and just letting the world pass you by? Because a lot of people need a break.

Let's bring in the president and the CEO from Omni Hotels, Peter Strebel. I think I've misidentified you, Peter. But I did want to get you in here. Because it is-- so many people need a break. And they turn to facilities like yours. And I was looking just recently for a hotel deal at a popular location. And the deals are not there because people are traveling. Is that what you're seeing at your end?

PETER STREBEL: Yeah, we're really busy. We predominantly are very busy on high demand periods like weekends. Our hotels basically in our resorts, we kind of serve three markets. We have the leisure traveler who's there on vacation, wants to have fun, wants to escape, we have the meetings that come from meetings and events, and then we also have the business travelers. Well there's no meetings going on right now. And there's no business travel going on right now.

But people want to get away. And they want to see America. And they want to have great experiences. So we're finding excess demand on weekends. So there's great deals out there midweek if you want to travel. But if you want to go on a Friday and Saturday to one of our peak resorts for example in Scottsdale, Arizona, or Orlando, Florida, or even skiing up in New Hampshire, it's going to be expensive. But there's great deals if you want to go mid-week.

EMILY MCCORMICK: Peter this is Emily here. When do you expect to see that rebound, potentially back to 2019 levels, in terms of the business traveler?

PETER STREBEL: I don't expect to see that probably for quite a while. I think leisure is going to be strong throughout the year. We are seeing a lot of leads for group business. So I think meetings are going to come back. They were coming back already in January. But unfortunately, with the new variant, we had to have some cancellations. I don't think your daily business travel, your Monday to Friday executive is going to be back on the road probably until the fall.

ADAM SHAPIRO: When we talk about leisure travel, when we get to the hotel, some places have this policy now of, do you want your room cleaned because of protections? How is Omni handling that? And how-- the staffing issues that resorts and hotels are facing, how are you getting over those hurdles?

PETER STREBEL: Well a couple questions there you asked. Number one, guests have the option if they want to have their room cleaned or not. If they do not want to have their room cleaned, then we donate money to Feeding America, which is a national organization that helps feed and provide food for all of the food banks throughout United States. So we prefer-- we give you an option. We give you a choice basically. We are a first class luxury hotel company. We believe and people come to our hotels because they want rest, they want relaxation, and they want to have their room cleaned.

But in the event that you do not want to have your room cleaned, we say, OK. We'll stay out of your room. And we donate the money that we would have spent on labor to Feeding America. Second question, labor, it's been difficult. We started-- before we started COVID, we had over 22,000 employees at Omni. When we closed all our hotels, we got down to 2,000 employees. By the three months later, we had to hire about another 10,000 employees. And a lot of people left the industry.

We were fortunate because we have a lot of long term employees. So we had a lot of employees come back. But it's been very, very difficult finding employees. The good news is that the wages have increased dramatically. So we are paying people more and they're making more money. And I think that the unemployment's going to end pretty soon because I think people are seeing that the hospitality industry now is back open. And we're paying a lot better. Our wages are up about 25% since pre-COVID.

EMILY MCCORMICK: When it comes to the destinations where you have Omni Hotels and resorts, where are you seeing the most concentration of travel, especially that leisure traveler? Is it disparate depending on the different locations? Or are you seeing pretty even demand at your locations?

PETER STREBEL: No, it really depends on location. For example, last year and going even into this year, our two beach resorts, Hilton Head Island, South Carolina, and Amelia Island, Florida, did incredibly well. They actually beat the numbers from 2019. Then we have some really great signature, I call them regional drive resorts. For example the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina. That actually already beat 2019's numbers.

Our Bedford Springs Resort outside of Washington DC and Pittsburgh did phenomenal. Mount Washington outside of Boston did great. So a lot of the resorts that were within driving distance to major Metropolitan areas like New York, like Boston, like Atlanta, did remarkably well.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Peter, on a day when it was 18 degrees in New York City, and I was wishing I was on Amelia Island at your resort, I'm curious, do you have a favorite of all the resorts? Is there one if you could get away right now you would run to?

PETER STREBEL: I would probably go to Mount Washington, which is in New Hampshire. It's one of the oldest hotels in America. It's a completely wood building made out of wood. It sits right in front of Mount Washington, which is the largest mountain in the northeastern part of the United States. We have a full ski resort, we have a full spa. The scenery up there is magnificent. I could just sit on the front porch all day long having a cup of tea or coffee in the morning, switching to a nice glass of wine in the afternoon, and just spend my whole day there.

It's truly magical. It's from a time long ago. But it's updated to today's modern conveniences.

EMILY MCCORMICK: You also have a couple of new openings and developments coming up for Omni, the Omni PGA Frisco resorts, the Omni Tempe hotel. Tell us a little bit more about these and how you are seeing opportunities in these regions.

PETER STREBEL: Well the Omni PGA Frisco is going to basically be I guess you would call it our flagship resort. It's going to open in about a year. It's in north Dallas. We partnered with the PGA of America. It's going to be the new home to golf in the United States. We already have over 20 PGA tournaments scheduled at that resort. It's going to be 500 guest rooms, gorgeous meeting space, six different restaurants, a full spa with a beautiful infinity edge pool overlooking the golf courses.

We're going to have a beautiful barn to host weddings and events. It's going to be a dramatic resort in north Texas, very easy to get to. The golf was designed by Bo Welling and Gil Hanse. They're probably two of the top golf designers today in the world. I've actually-- the golf, believe it or not, is already almost done. The resort opens in about a year. I've had the opportunity to golf. It is spectacular. And we're real excited about that resort. It's going to definitely put a new golf resort on the books for great golfers, and spa goers, and people that want good food, and great pools, and a great place to go in Dallas.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Peter we appreciate your picking Mount Washington even in the winter. I'm going to wait till the summer though because I do love north Conway, New Hampshire. And I would love to go to the top of Mount Washington once again. All the best to you, Peter Strebel, Omni Hotels and resorts president. Thank you for joining us.