The U.S. Lifts the Pandemic Travel Ban and Opens the Doors to International Visitors // Travel Execs Avail to Discuss

The reopening of the border to many international visitors today comes with a new set of rules, such as vaccination requirements. Airlines have reported a jump in bookings to the U.S. and expect an immediate surge in travellers, even before peak holiday periods—and the best people to guide travellers through the turbulent holiday travel season are HotelPlanner CEO, Tim Hentschel and Mahesh Chaddah, co-founder of Reservations.com.

As the CEO of the world’s largest group travel site, Tim and Mahesh have insider knowledge of what hospitality executives expect for the holiday season, from the bad to the unexpectedly stellar. They are available to discuss:

What foreign travellers can expect as they return to America. Most foreign travellers are visiting America for the first time will encounter vaccine requirements, mask rules, and more that didn’t exist before America shut down.

The impact of staffing shortages. Some workers are refusing to apply for cleaning jobs. Many pilots refuse vaccines. These trends lead to staffing shortages, which in turn are causing travellers to run into delays when checking into hotels, a lack of cleaning people, and more new dilemmas. Fear not. Hentschel has tips to get you through it, like hotels’ new digital check-in programs.

What types of travel is increasing. Conventional wisdom says travel is decreasing. Not all of it. In the past few months, weddings, reunions, and more have increased dramatically to the point where many hotels transform lobbies into wedding spaces.

How hotels have changed because of COVID-19. Weddings aren’t the only additions to lobbies. Many hotels are renovating lobbies to resemble Starbucks to welcome workers who work on the road.

Hentschel and Chaddah have thoughts on this and other topics. TO INTERVIEW TIM HENTSCHEL and MAHESH CHADDAH, ABOUT REOPENINGS AND MORE, EMAIL CHRISTINE@AMWPR.COM.

ABOUT HOTELPLANNER
HotelPlanner is a leading travel technology company that combines proprietary artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, and a 24/7 global gig-based reservations and customer service network, to quickly and seamlessly serve all traveler hotel & accommodation needs from a single platform.
HotelPlanner is one of the world’s top providers of individual, group, and corporate travel bookings, specialising in unique “Closed User Group” discount rates.

Founded in 2004, HotelPlanner has enduring partnerships with the world’s largest Online Travel Agencies, well-known hotel chains, individual hotels, online wedding providers, ancillary lodging providers, corporations, sports franchises, universities, and government agencies.

ABOUT RESERVATIONS
Reservations.com is reinventing the online booking experience, bringing service back to customer service, and Mahesh is constantly in contact with leading hotel, airline, and resort execs. Although vaccine mandates, along with many states requiring vaccine passports, may cut the supply of people travelling in the short term, it can’t stop Americans from demanding to get out of the house.