While many industries faced challenges in 2020, few were impacted by COVID-19 quite like the travel and leisure industry. Per the American Hotel & Lodging Association, the impact of COVID-19 on the travel industry was nine times worse than that of 9/11. In particular, hotels, resorts, and casinos experienced their most devastating year in decades, resulting in historically low occupancy, low revenues, massive job loss, and closures across the country.

These industries were some of the first to be affected by the pandemic after travel was forced to a virtual halt in early 2020, and it appears they will be one of the last to recover, as global air travel is not expected to return to 2019 levels until 2024¹.

Despite this, casinos, resorts, and hotels are doing their best to move forward and create an inviting environment for when travel begins to return in 2021, and patrons become more comfortable as vaccines are more widely distributed. As such, business owners in this space will be keeping a close on their P&L statements as business slowly starts to improve. One key component they will be watching is their risk management and insurance costs, which have become a more significant portion of their budget.

1https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/air-travel-recovery-2024/index.html