Local Hotels Seeing Decline In Business Due To COVID-19

COLUMBUS, Miss. (WCBI)-Shelter in place orders naturally means fewer people are traveling, and that’s having a big impact on hotels.

Hotels depend on those travelers to help keep their doors open.

At Days Inn in Columbus, an empty lobby and empty bedrooms have become the new normal due to the coronavirus.

“Honestly speaking business has been really dull,” said Netri Patel, who works at the fron desk at the hotel. “We usually have the occupancy of about 60 or 70% during this time of year, but because of the COVID-19 we have about 30% of the occupancy.”

Patel said this weekend was going to be a big moneymaker because of people coming into town for graduation.

“We were booked for the weekend and we had some people call in just to have their names down so if the rooms get canceled they can have their rooms, but because of the coronavirus the ceremony got canceled and they all just canceled their reservations,” Patel explained.

But Days Inn isn’t alone, the Holiday Inn Express is also feeling the impacts of COVID-19.

“Business was severely impacted,” said Wayne Cothran, general manager at the hotel. “We still maintain rooms every night, we’re still in the double digits which is great. We’re starting to have a little bit of a comeback, but it hurt us a lot. We had to lay employees off, things we normally would do we couldn’t do any more like the breakfast and things like that.”

Despite business being slow, staff members are still working hard to keep themselves and their guests safe.

Staff members are wearing PPE and constantly wiping and cleaning the rooms and building.

“The buttons for the elevator, we would normally wipe down once or twice a day, but now we are having to wipe it down every hour or so,” said Cothran. “Anywhere the guest or staff is going to have contact, we’re wiping down multiple times a day.”

Patel said they’re taking those same preventative measures.

In fact, employees are encouraged not to leave the hotel just so they won’t put anyone at risk

“We have a couple of workers who have been staying here for over a month,” she said. “It’s good for us to keep them safe because if they go out and bring it in,it’s going to be harmful for us and the guest at the same time.”

Patel and Cothran said this this usually a busy time of year for their businesses due to graduation, college athletics, and several local events that were set to take place in the coming weeks.

The hotels will remain open while also practicing and following guidelines given by the Centers for Disease Control.