Hard-hit hotel industry may need six months of taxpayer help to survive pandemic, official says

Hotels have shed 4 million jobs and are losing $500 million a day from the coronavirus and may need as much as six months of taxpayer help to survive the pandemic, the head of the nation's largest hotel owners association said Tuesday.

AAHOA President and CEO Cecil Staton described the sudden, acute drop in business that hotels experienced after the nation went into a shutdown.

"Nobody can prepare to go to occupancy rates in the single digits. Even after the 2008 financial crisis occupancy rates never fell much below 50 percent. Today they're in the single digits," he told Just the News during an interview with the John Solomon Reports podcast.

Staton said that the economy will recover more quickly if Congress appropriates funds to prop up American businesses during the crisis rather than allowing them to collapse.

He said that he is "concerned that the communities of this country are going to be littered with the carcasses of small businesses that have failed."

Staton wants Congress to allocate more money for Payment Protection Program loans and "to extend them for a longer period of time and to allow small businesses across the country to use them for things in addition to payroll." He suggested the final tab may need to reach $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion so that hotels could have up to six months of assistance to get back on their feet.

Staton also applauded hoteliers for providing assistance amid the crisis, noting that more than 15,000 hotels have participated in a program letting first responders to stay for free in hotels to keep their families safe. Others are providing lodging for college students and homeless Americans.