‘Adjusting to this new normal’: Myrtle Beach hoteliers prepping for safety, low occupancy
Grand Strand hotels opened this past weekend for the first time in more than a month.
It gives hoteliers hope that some semblance of a summer tourism season can be salvaged in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But that hope is accompanied by doubt and uncertainty as they focus as much on instituting safety and sanitation measures as they do on attempting to make a profit, which is likely at least a couple weeks away.
“I don’t know what to expect. I don’t know that anyone looks in their crystal ball and feels really confident about what we’re looking at,” said Matt Klugman, chief operating officer of Vacation Myrtle Beach Resorts, which manages 14 Strand oceanfront properties.
“We’re just working hard to make sure we have a safe environment and hopefully we can have a successful summer where we keep things under control and can bring a lot of folks into Myrtle Beach. Candidly, what that looks like I really don’t know at this point and don’t know if any of us know.”
The market is accepting visitors in baby steps, as states begin to relieve stay-at-home orders and other restrictions, and many people are still trying to avoid leaving their homes, never mind their towns or states.
Restrictions set by S.C. Gov. Henry McMaster that remain in effect include restaurants being closed to inside dining, and businesses such as bars, nightclubs, gyms, and nail and hair salons being closed.
Horry County, Myrtle Beach, North Myrtle Beach, Surfside Beach and Georgetown County hotels and short-term lodging rental businesses were all permitted to reopen last Friday, and Pawleys Island will allow them to reopen on May 8.
Safety measures
Hotels opened without many of their amenities, however, as swimming pools, spas, bars, workout rooms and inside dining areas are closed in accordance with state orders.
“I think caution is the first thought. Health and safety is paramount,” said Matthew Brittain, chief executive officer of Brittain Resorts & Hotels, which operates 10 Strand hotels/condotels. “At the same time we … do think it’s important for the economy to get back open and we’ll monitor it very closely, and if it looks like it’s not going to be safe, we’ll take action.”
Brittain and Klugman were two of three hoteliers on the Accelerate Myrtle Beach Recovery Task Force that has published suggested guidelines for safely reopening/operating five primary sectors of tourism-related business on the Strand: accommodations, restaurants, attractions, golf courses and retail outlets.
The guidelines offer a phased approach to reopening and include recommendations for social distancing, sanitation, capacity and enforcement. They incorporate guidance from multiple sources including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, other government agencies and national and regional associations.
The City of Myrtle Beach also adopted comprehensive sanitation requirements for hotels that are more stringent in some cases and include plexiglass partitions at check-in areas, hourly disinfecting of frequently-touched surfaces, and one party in elevators at a time.
The task force consists of area business leaders who spoke daily by phone beginning April 15 to develop the recommendations.
“It was really a top-notch effort from everyone on the task force,” Klugman said, “and once again I feel like Myrtle Beach kind of set the standard for making our guests feel comfortable, making our staff feel comfortable and focusing on protecting our community.”
Welcoming guests
Brittain said his properties are operating at up to 10 percent occupancy over the next two weeks, and seven are in Myrtle Beach, where new reservations can’t be made for dates through May 14, per a city order. “But that’s good because it gives us a chance to test some of our new policies and procedures that are related to cleaning, social distancing, the elevator issues,” he said.
Brittain said when reservations dip to the 20-percent occupancy range his hotels don’t make a profit. Jim Eggen, corporate general manager for Myrtle Beach Seaside Resorts, which operates six Strand lodging properties, said he also expects those to lose money for at least the next couple weeks.
Brittain said his current occupancy rates for the final two weeks of May are generally 30 percent or less and he anticipates new bookings to push them closer to 40 or 50 percent.
McMaster on Friday rescinded an order prohibiting the rental of lodging in the state to people from areas with a high concentration of coronavirus cases such as the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, so hotels don’t have booking restrictions based on geography.
An order requiring people from those areas to quarantine for 14 days was also lifted.
Hotel occupancy numbers were plummeting prior to local governments collectively closing lodging providers the week of March 23-29. The previous week, hotel occupancy rates in the Myrtle Beach area fell to 26 percent, dropping 55.5 percent compared to the same week in 2019, according to the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation & Tourism. Weekend occupancy dipped 76 percent compared to last year with just 21 percent of rooms booked.
The SCPRT’s statistics are based on a weekly report it receives from STR Inc., a Tennessee-based company that tracks supply and demand data for industries including hotels. The numbers do not include short-term rentals by companies such as Airbnb and VRBO.
The last major disruption of the summer tourism season was the Great Recession from 2007-09.
Comparing the months of June, July and August in 2008 and 2019, hotel room nights in the Myrtle Beach area — essentially Horry County — were down 200,000 to 2 million and occupancy rates were down 8 percent to 74 percent.
The biggest drop for hotels came in the fall of 2008, however, and room nights for the year in 2008 were down 1 million to 5.3 million compared to 2019 and occupancy was down 9 percent to 51 percent.
Hotel operators are a lot less optimistic about the circumstances this year.
Large tourist events such as the Harley-Davidson spring bike rally and Carolina Country Music Fest have already been postponed and face being canceled because of the coronavirus, and social distancing recommendations would keep hotels from nearing capacity even if the demand warranted it.
“We don’t know what summer holds,” Klugman said. “We have certainly tempered expectations and we just want to make sure we’re proceeding carefully and making sure everybody is safe, and our guests are able to have a good experience while being comfortable in the environment and kind of adjusting to this new normal.”
Brittain said his properties generally have a 98-percent occupancy rate in July, which is annually the best month of the year, and June and August are more than 90 percent each.
“We clearly don’t expect anything near normal summer occupancies for sure,” Brittain said. “I think the public safety is the first accomplishment we want to have as a goal, so that will limit any secondary goals of reaching a maximum occupancy or an average daily rate. We hope to maybe get 50 percent of July. That would be nice.”
Employees return
Brittain Resorts expects to at least get back to the number of employees it had prior to layoffs in March, but isn’t likely to approach the numbers it employs in a typical summer.
“We are calling them back as needed, and if the occupancies reach what we’re talking about by June … I can pretty much say we will be bringing them all back because we would have been hiring during this period in order to meet the summer demand,” Brittain said.
Neither Klugman nor Brittain knew if they would want or need international J-1 Visa students this summer who normally fill many positions throughout their companies, and their availability is in question with COVID-19 affecting most of the world.
“It is very unclear what the J-1 process will be at this time,” Brittain said. “They are probably not an option, although we don’t know that. There is not real clarity there. A lot of the embassies, our embassies are closed so even getting J-1s here is proving problematic, and whether we will need them or not is not clear.”
This story was originally published May 5, 2020 at 10:45 AM.
