Hotel Staff Shortages Threaten to Push Travel Costs Even Higher - Wall Street Journal.

Room rates look poised to rise as owners pass on escalating wage costs

Hotel owners have been on an epic hiring spree. Yet even after clawing back hundreds of thousands of jobs during the past two years, the industry is still light on staff and often struggling to adapt.  

Daily housekeeping for all guests, room service and other amenities that were reduced or eliminated during the pandemic are still lacking at many properties.

At the same time, hotels across the U.S. have held their daily room rates near all-time highs this winter, in part to offset the increase in wages to lure workers back. Hotels will collectively pay $123 billion in compensation this year, up more than 20% from 2019, according to the American Hotel & Lodging Association. 

Some hotel owners now fret that a guest backlash could be building as smaller staffs can compromise the level of service and higher wages threaten to push the cost of travel even higher.

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