The COVID-19 pandemic has been rough on America’s hotel and tourism industry, and Indiana has not been exempt.
After beaches closed, sports tournaments and festivals were canceled and travel slowed to a near halt, hotel rooms sat mostly empty.
Chris Gahl, senior vice president of marketing and communications said that Indianapolis has lost 306 conventions tallying more than $541 million in lost economic impact. With that loss of business has come high unemployment.
Gahl said that out of the 83,000 men and women who depend on tourism for a paycheck, roughly 40,000 of these Indy residents are currently unemployed,
Nationally, one out of every four hotels has missed at least one payment on their commercial mortgage. Delinquencies on hotel loans have risen from 1.3 percent at this time last year to 23.4 percent, according to data from Trepp. Nearly $20.6 billion in hotel loans were delinquent in July, higher than the $13.5 billion in delinquent loans during the Great Recession.
Tags: Indianapolis, Tourism, Tourism news
