To bad weather, a good face. This is the philosophy with which some hotel facilities are responding to the ravages of the pandemic. Beyond getting through a bad season (with the request for Temporary Employment Regulation Files or opting for possible aid), those that can invest the time when there is less clientele to invest in security, carry out integral reforms or optimise, technologically speaking, their internal processes. Managers at the helm of the hotel sector have also taken time to reflect. The aim? To think about new projects and further improve their strategy. So how have hotels taken advantage of the Covid-19 shutdown?

For many tourism-related sectors, the virus has been an impetus to take control of the business and modernise. A large number have shuttered their doors, but others (also significant) have gone online (or perhaps even gone e-commerce). To give an example, already in March 2020, different tourist agencies took advantage of the great shutdown of confinement to disseminate virtual content to promote themselves and to be close to their community/clientele; social networks were for many a salvation, as well as instant messaging platforms and tools to keep in touch telematically.

The lull was also used as an opportunity to schedule reform projects. It should also be said that the construction sector was one of the first to resume its activity, and was quickly considered an essential service. The administrations, for their part, reactivated, in some cases, the granting of licences to be able to carry out the different actions. The hoteltur.com portal made visible in November 2020 the case of Atom Hotels,where they invested up to three million euros in the renovation of Meliá Valencia. Thus, hotel closures were seen, in some cases, as an opportunity.

Becoming ‘sustainable’ because of the virus

The importance of transmitting safety to guests from hotels has become, as we have said in previous articles, real factors with which to gain in competitiveness, since the clientele will opt for those that are committed to disinfection and safety protocols rather than those that do not promote it. In this line, the appearance of Covid-19 and, with it, the certificates that comply with all the guarantees of non-contagion, have brought with them an added value: sustainability.

Nowadays, it is increasingly common for different corporations of all kinds to advocate caring for the environment and, having faced the arrival of the coronavirus, to want to be more sustainable and efficient. The Eco-One platform was created at the end of last year with the same objective in mind. The new agent proposes to each hotel establishment to carry out a free diagnosis in order to find investment and purchasing habits that are much better than the ones they have; they advocate changing their habits in order to overcome the losses caused by the pandemic in the most profitable way. As we have mentioned throughout this article, in such complex contexts, new ideas also emerge.