Human Toll Of DFW Hotel Closings, Furloughs Shows Up In State Layoff Notices
The darkness that has befallen North Texas resorts and luxury hotels in the wake of the coronavirus is showing up in layoff notices filed with the state of Texas.
Three Dallas-Fort Worth area hotels announced nearly 2,000 layoffs combined in June, with many of those staff furloughs and job cuts taking place two or three months earlier, when stay-at-home orders were in effect.
The Gaylord Texan Resort in Grapevine announced 1,426 layoffs that took place in March and were recorded in June. The large convention and hotel venue started accepting reservations again in the first week of June. A spokesperson for the Gaylord could not be reached by press time to confirm how many, if any, employees have been hired back after the resort started booking reservations again.
The Ritz-Carlton in Dallas notified the state in June of 365 layoffs stemming from the coronavirus's impact on the hotel.
The Hyatt Regency DFW at DFW Airport also laid off 210 workers in March, according to state warn notices filed in June.
It isn't uncommon for higher-end and full-service hotels to take the brunt of a downturn, hotel experts say.
CBRE Managing Director of Hotels Advisory Jeff Binford told Bisnow in mid-June that full-service and luxury hotels performed worse than extended-stay hotels and discount lodging options after the virus arrived.
“If you think about the hotels that have fared well versus those that have not, those that have done well are the select-service, limited-service, budget and extended-stay hotels,” Binford said at the time. “Those that have not fared well are the full-service luxury hotels; resort hotels; and, frankly, they are much more expensive to operate at lower occupancy levels.”
Nationally, 7.7 million hospitality and leisure jobs were lost in April alone, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported. The American Hotel & Lodging Association also reported that 79% of direct hotel workers were either laid off or furloughed, costing workers more than $2.4B in earnings each week.
