I remember when we were putting the final touches on our Spring Issue of Hospitality Upgrade, which seems like a lifetime ago. The industry was coming off a great year and optimism was sky high. We had a record crowd registered for our 16th Executive Vendor Summit and the excitement level for 2020 was off the charts. I remember LinkedIn sharing that I was celebrating my 28th year in business and the congratulations were nonstop. Life was good. Then, everything changed when COVID-19 became a pandemic. As I look back at the past 90 days my emotions run all over the place. When you have been doing something for 28 years you have customers and industry folks who become great friends. Many of my friends were losing their jobs through no fault of their own. It was painful. Everybody was worried about the future. I quickly got into many phone conversations which eventually became Zoom meetings. I talked to many CIOs who quickly had limited staffs and now they were dealing with hotels being closed and the uncertainty of the future. I had conversations with those who had tech companies and how they were planning to adapt to the new world we were thrown into. HSMAI, HFTP, HTNG and AHLA, my conversations were nonstop. HFTP quickly created its HFTP Hangouts and asked me to do the second one which rattled quite a few people in the industry. Hotels were getting stimulus money from the government to keep their staff employed, but since they had no business, they wanted to use the money to pay franchise fees, mortgages and utilities. Utilities? Why not also include the fees that the industry tech vendors needed to collect so these companies can stay in business? That has led to an amazing learning experience how our government works and the world of lobbyists. With the help of HTNG and HFTP and lead by Danny Hudson, formerly of Wyndham, we have reached the leaders of AHLA to help get the concerns and issues related to industry technology solutions heard in Washington, DC.

Over the last 90 days we have engaged in things to promote the future of the industry. Hospitality Upgrade has partnered with HTNG on a career center which has started to list jobs for those in the tech world. There are new jobs being listed, but of course not as quick as it would have been a year ago. We have used our relationships to create very short but informative video interviews (often with a bit of humor) with various industry leaders from CIOs, CFOs, vendors and a couple of surprises. All the videos can be found on www.hospitalityupgrade.com. You will see me embarrass myself, but I have gotten lots of positive feedback which makes it worthwhile.

Every conversation leads to one subject -- HITEC! Here we are in June and everyone is talking about an event that the whole industry wants to be a success. HFTP has done an amazing job doing what needs to be done to make the event safe and (hopefully) four months from now confidence levels around travel will be much higher. I know that many thousands of people all over the world are hoping that HITEC will be a success and many will attend to support it. It will not be a typical HITEC. Combining HITEC with the HFTP Annual Conference and Club Forum will help attendee numbers. San Antonio is definitely on my list for October 26th.

There is great concern for the future and sometimes too much negativity is shared about recovery. But, I was pleasantly surprised at how many hotels were taking advantage of these quiet times to implement technology. If you look at the pipeline of new hotels under construction around the world, they continue to be built. That is a sign of the future. Even though I hear that the need to travel will not be the same as it was, and I might be the king of Zoom, the gap between video and face to face is night and day. At least that is how I feel. How about you?

Let me close with this: We will get through this and I would like to agree with the saying that we are all in this together. I can’t wait until we reach the other side.

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