Vulnerable Hotel industry seeks more PPP loans to save jobs

Companies all around the world are looking for the light at the end of the tunnel post-pandemic. Yahoo Finance’s On The Move panel break down what the future looks like for travel and hospitality companies, as well as the road to recovery for these industries.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance. Dow is back in positive territory. It's up about 30 points. We want to talk about what it's going to take to get this economy back on track. And part of that is what we would like to call the road to recovery. I want to invite the panel in. I've got a Akiko Fujita here. I've got Brian Cheung here-- my co-anchor Julie Hyman. One of the things we've heard about, for instance, the airlines, which we know are hurting-- JetBlue today said they're going to require all passengers starting May 4 to wear a mask. What else are we hearing, Julie?

JULIE HYMAN: Well, I want to talk about Simon Property as well, because CNBC is reporting this morning that they got a memo from that huge mall owner that looked at 49 of the company's malls opening in the first few days of May. And the protocol that they're talking about would involve shorter hours-- so to allow people to clean for a longer time overnight. They would ask people who have a fever or were showing signs of sickness to stay home.

But you still have to wonder, with all these precautions, whether it's the airlines or we're getting reports of what hotels are doing or Airbnb, you have to wonder if asymptomatic spread is as common as some in the medical community believe-- what, you know, this opening up, what effect that's going to have even if you do all of this cleaning and the procedures that they're talking about.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Akiko, are you following what Marriott has talked about with this electrostatic cleaning using CDC-approved disinfectants?

AKIKO FUJITA: Well, Marriott essentially putting out, you know, some of the points that they're going to be taking as these economies reopen. And I think it does speak to the broader issue in the hotel sector, which is about consumer confidence, right? So while people may get the directive from individual governments that businesses are going to start to reopen, unless people feel comfortable going into these spaces that they believe have been properly disinfected, they're not going to be going out.

And that's just talking about business customers, first of all. I think travel-- leisure travel is way down the line. But I think there is a bigger question within the hotel sector, which is, you know, Marriott may be able to afford to take these steps, but there's a lot of these hotels that are really small businesses. A lot of these hotels are franchises. They may not have the cash on hand to take the necessary steps to, I guess, convince some of these travelers to come back through the door. And the number I keep hearing from these conversations-- the American Hotel Lodging Association has said that they don't believe 50% of the hotels in the US are going to survive. And so that's something I think we should be looking for in the next few months.

JULIE HYMAN: And, Akiko, just to chime in on that, and with more on the Airbnb situation, there you have almost micro hotels, right? There's not a smaller business than a single person who owns their home and rents it out. And there, too, have been a lot of issues about people who have built that into their personal businesses, and now what happens when people aren't coming to stay there? Airbnb has now rolled out some steps, although it's still unclear where the onus is going to be in terms of costs for cleaning. They're talking now, though, about a 24-hour buffer period in between rentals. But again, to your point, are people going to be confident enough even with these increased measures to stay in these places? And those people who had pivoted to being Airbnb renters, what are they going to do now-- let alone Airbnb, the parent company, itself.