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Results season: reasons to be cheerful

How happy should you be? Right now? The pandemic has seen us all take a closer look at our mental health, to gauge whether we were seconds away from climbing onto the roof and hulking stale banana bread at perceived miscreants on the street. Emotions, pundits told us, were likely to be elevated. Watch out for them.

Fear, trepidation and outright panic were what we were told to keep a special eye out for and with good cause. But, as signs suggest that treatments are making Covid-19 ever-less deadly, is it time to take a breath and start to think about the possibility of hope?

That’s your lookout. This hack wishes you all the best, but experience of this sector tells me that you don’t come here for psychological advice. As for the business of hotels, what emotions should you be exhibiting when facing into its sun?

Results season is now over and was the worst on record. No crystal ball required for that gem, but should you be looking forward with hope or horror?

For the CEOs, the pendulum swung both ways, with significantly more teeth shown on the US side. Leading the cheery charge was Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta, who, through his contacts in science and government felt confident in saying: “There’s a decent likelihood of not just a vaccine but a suite of different vaccines in the Fall”. His catchphrase was around performance being “a grind up”, which can be taken a number of ways, most positively for fans of dancehall.

At Park Hotels & Resorts, CEO Tom Baltimore was similarly Tigger-esque, chatting about “more evidence that there will be therapies and vaccine” (they used to be related, you know, Park and Hilton) and this from a group which saw a 96% revpar decline in the second quarter. But then its business is property, where there are likely to be significant bargains in the offing and Park has over $1.6bn of liquidity available.

Paddle boarding across the pond was Accor, where CEO & chairman Sébastien Bazin had “never seen so many enquiries” from small and medium-sized groups eager to join his crew. For a group which may yet be exposed to a potential black hole in AccorInvest caused by Colony, it was all rather chipper. But for Bazin it was all one long seaside adventure. “We are safe on the board, we can see what is happening around us and we can choose whether we can surf,” he concluded. There was some shade - they’re based in Paris, it’s baked in - as Bazin also pointed out that the sector had shot back 30 years in terms of traveller numbers. Time travel is not this market’s friend, well, not unless you’re supplying trouser presses.

Then, finally, in the UK we had the sober voice of Keith Barr, who, if he were a less generous spirit, might rub in the company’s strength in China, which others had gathered to mock at the start of All This. Not to mention how many Holiday Inns IHG has in these budget-motivated times. Barr instead struck a tone for not leaping into things too quickly, telling analysts that the company had no plans to change the designs of its hotels to favour pandemic living, because this too will pass. And right now, that’s all the cheer this hack needs.

Behind this results season was something which no-one in the sector finds at all funny - thousands and thousands of job losses. This week sees us move into a subscription model and we hope you’ll join us there. With many readers now looking for work, we’re offering 60 free days so that you can stay informed. Do sign up here:

 

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