Trending
The hotel industry around the nation and the world experienced major losses in 2020 due to the impact of COVID-19, but the Altoona area has done an impressive job rebounding compared to some of the major markets across Pennsylvania, a survey said.
According to STR, a travel research statistics group, 2020 was officially the worst recorded year for the hospitality industry. For the first time in history, there were a reported 1 billion unsold room nights -- more than the 786 million unsold room nights during the 2009 great recession.
While the industry as a whole is still experiencing losses due in part to the number of restrictions in place in different states and communities, the Altoona market seems to be trending up with the experiences shared by some of the local hotels.
Explore Altoona Executive Director Mark Ickes said the tourism agency receives local reports from STR, and since the early days of the pandemic, Altoona has consistently had more favorable percentages based on population in comparison to other Pennsylvania communities like State College, Pittsburgh, Lancaster and Johnstown.
Some of the numbers that stood out the most were the occupancy rate, demand and total revenue, Ickes said.
"Altoona's hotel occupancy exceeded the average of those seven markets by 10 percentage points, revenue per available room by 15 points and total revenue by 16 percentage points," Ickes said.
Those numbers still are in the negative -- like almost every hotel market nationwide right now -- but the fact that Altoona has been performing by-and-large at better negative percentages compared to other parts of the state is promising in Ickes' eyes.
Although it is hard to pinpoint exactly why Altoona has been performing at that level through the pandemic, Ickes believes some of it could be attributed to business travel and the size of Altoona in comparison to other larger markets.
"Two driving forces throughout 2020 appeared to have been medical professional-related travel and construction project-related," Ickes said.
The appeal of Altoona -- especially with caution around COVID-19 -- can be summarized in its reputation of being a smaller city and not drawing large crowds of tourists, which can make visitors feel safer while still offering a variety of attractions, according to Ickes.
Heather Macharola, general manager at the Altoona Holiday Inn Express, said that her hotel has been seeing a higher percentage of guests than the national average in part thanks to the hospital and both medical workers and patients/families coming into the area. She also said that numbers have continued to trend upward with the opening of businesses and attractions like the Altoona Curve stadium.
"The more open the state becomes, the better it is," Macharola said. "As the restrictions start to disappear, the more we can offer."
Macharola said that several weddings have been scheduled for the summer, and the Holiday Inn Express has received a lot of bookings related to weddings specifically, which has boosted its numbers, but it's still going to be a long road to fully recover.
"The hotel industry is expecting a two to three year recovery from this -- to get back to making money again and make up for what was lost," Macharola said.
Similarly to the Holiday Inn Express, the Altoona Grand Hotel had fairly stable numbers through the majority of the pandemic thanks to local families opting for staycations at the hotel, according to general manager Lindsay Danella.
"We were extremely surprised to see the sudden uptick in business since the beginning of the year," Danella said.
Danella said that the main issue at this point has been finding the staff to keep up with the new influx of reservations and, like the Holiday Inn Express, the current staff needed to be stretched to meet every need.
"There was a brief period where the supply didn't really match the demand, so we had to adapt and conquer as much as possible," Danella said.
Macharola made it clear that without the staff that stayed with the hotel throughout the pandemic, there was no way it would have survived as well as it has to this point.
"We have a small staff working two to three positions to keep up with the workload," Macharola said. "We were never included in the list of essential workers; meanwhile, we're out there getting COVID and working harder and making less money."
Mirror Staff Writer Nate Powles can be reached at 814-946-7466.