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The Regional Perspective: Conversations with Business Leaders Featuring Jessica Bowman

Featuring Jessica Bowman, Area Director of Sales for Charlestowne Hotels

2020 has brought our region a variety of challenges and provided each of us with opportunities to evaluate our perspectives.

March is when everything hit the fan for a lot of industries, but especially for hospitality in our region. According to Jessica, the speed of uncertainty was the scariest thing after the COVID-19 pandemic hit. When will hotels be able to reopen? How will our hotels be able to recover financially? How are we handling staff in each of our hotels?

These, along with a million other thoughts were racing through the minds of hospitality employees. In this webinar, Jessica dives a little deeper into the recovery of Charlestowne Hotels, the challenges that continue to keep them up at night and her perspective on what the future looks like.

Recovery of Properties

The fact that Charlestowne Hotels includes 50 leisure-based hotels that are relatively small has really helped get them through. Hotels in larger cities such as New York and Chicago had a tougher go at staying afloat during this global pandemic.

For the recovery period, Charlestowne knew that they had to ramp up communication with their guests and future guests.

They also must be extremely flexible with the cancellation policy and more empathetic about people’s circumstances. Jessica truly values the relationships she has made throughout the her career. Although she and her team approached each conversation delicately, their hope was that they will rebook and keep their deposits.

Future of Hospitality  

Where do we see the hospitality industry going? In Jessica’s mind, she sees Q1 of next year continuing to stay slow as we will most likely still be feeling the effects of COVID-19. She is hoping that in Q2 hotels will begin to rebound and be on the mend.

Posted on
September 28th 2020
Written by
Charleston Metro Chamber
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