As stated in the introduction, I work at a value hotel. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, I could work the morning shift and predict how many guests we would have by the end of the day, give or take five individuals. That’s true even for hotels with lots of walk-in visitors.
Even on days when we weren’t doing that well or when it was a slow time of year, business was usually predictable day to day. Once you know the flow of your business, you develop a sense for how things will go.
However, this pandemic has changed everything. Due to cancellations, the criminal element, people traveling at the last minute to get back to their places of origin, homeless people, and many other factors, the hotel business has become impossible to predict day to day or even hour to hour.
The value hotel where I work has about 115 rooms. Right now, we are filling about 20–40 rooms a night. It is almost impossible to predict occupancy or which days will be better or worse.