Fact Checked Source:
Remarks by President Trump in Meeting with Tourism Industry Executives on COVID-19 Response 

Looking Deeper: Five Facts Checked

"The Small Business Administration announced disaster loans, which provide impacted businesses with up to $2 million.  And we’ve asked Congress to increase the SB lending authority.  We’re going to be going up to $50 billion and, actually, much more than that for small businesses.  So they’ll be helped.  In your cases, they’re very big businesses, but it’s a lot of employees."

"Just today, I had a call with one of our franchisees.  He was lamenting that, although he owns about 10 different hotels and different brands, and some with us and some with other brands, he was lamenting having to lay off tens of hundreds of people in his company. "

"So now we are seeing occupancies below 10 percent, in the single digits, for the vast majority of our hotels — whereas a week ago, they were 20, 30 points higher than that.  It’s happened very rapidly."

"As the President pointed out, we’re, you know, one of the biggest industries in the country.  We’re one of the biggest employers in the country.  And our industry, as you will hear from others, has been impacted in a devastating way."

"I personally lived through many crisis, starting with the S&L, the 9/11 crisis, the Great Recession.  I’ve been doing this for 35 years.  Never seen anything like it."

Analytic Essay
Room for COVID-19

President Trump’s conference with CEOs of large hotel chains showcases how the CEOs are viewing the COVID-19 pandemic. The conference’s audience is people concerned about the fate of the hotel industry and those curious about how the virus has affected hotels.  To reach the audience they broadcasted the conference and then later posted a transcript of it. The CEOs care about their employees and recognize that many of them will probably lose jobs, to the lack of rooms being booked or other various shutdowns. They also all recognize that they are not the only industry to take a hit, the hotel industry is a part of a whole ecosystem that builds up the hospitality industry.  

Majority of the CEOs are concerned with two things: employee retention, and liquidation.  It also shows some of the plans Trump has put in place for small businesses.  The Small Business Administration created disaster loans which will give business up to 2 million dollars, and they have asked Congress to increase the amount that was initially given.  COVID-19 has affected the hotel industry negatively, because jobs are being lost and they have to be careful about figuring out when to reopen to avoid a resurgence.

This is the worst economic hit that has ever been seen by the hotel industry, it is worse than 9/11 and the 2008 recession combined (ABC15, 2020).  At least 3.9 million people are expected to be laid off (American Hotel & Lodging Association, 2020).  That is a lot of people to be left jobless, and who knows when and if they will get their jobs back.  

Hotels realize it is important for them to be controlled or even shut down to stop the spread of the virus.  Hotels are the perfect place for a virus to spread, demonstrated by the H1N1 and SARS outbreaks (Hung, Mark, Yeung, 2018).  Our world is interconnected by travel, and it is hard to halt all travel when an outbreak is in its beginning stages. The SARS virus, an outbreak in 2003, helped in place policies to control various infectious diseases, which was an outbreak disease and also made how they would handle it.  It is called the ‘Emergency Response Level Steering Committee on Influenza Pandemic’, but it barely included anything about the hotel industry.  This impacts the industry negatively, because hotels are shared spaces between individuals from all over the world it makes it easier for viruses to be spread unconsciously.  

The facts that matter to the hotel industry is how quickly people will be back to traveling.  They also care about the health and safety of their employees and customers, since they want to make sure nobody gets sick because of them.   It is hard for them to judge though, since nobody really has an exact date on when travel bans or stay at home orders will be lifted.  They are also concerned with the safety of their customers and employees once they are able to return. Hotels would be a hot spot for resurgence if the bans are lifted too soon, and they recognize that (Hung, Mark, Yeung, 2018).  The heads of the hotel industry trust the words of medical professionals, since they will provide the most accurate information about how the virus is spread and when it is safe enough to get back to business as usual.  They also realize that most people will trust medical professionals advice on when it is safe to travel again.  The hotel industry also needs to listen to the government on when it is safe to resume their business, since there are many travel bans and stay at home orders in place.   They need to keep good communication with both medical professionals and the government to determine when it is safe to begin going back to their normal practices. 

The hotel industry is in trouble, and it will take time to recover from the crisis.  It is important to recognize the drastic effects COVID-19 has had on it, because it has affected many people’s livelihoods.  Spring and summer travel is what helps keep most hotels in business, but because of COVID-19 these months may be detrimental (ABC15, 2020).  Through the crisis hotels have realized the impact they have on world health, since disease is often carried through their doors.  Business as usual may take a while to return to hotels, but they are hopeful to retain their employees. 

References

Remarks by President Trump in Meeting with Tourism Industry Executives on COVID-19 Response. (2020, March 17) https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-meeting-tourism-industry-executives-covid-19-response/  
This is a primary source since it is from the CEOs of many hotels worldwide.  This transcript came straight from a White House conference between President Trump and the CEOs of hotels.   It shows the perspectives of CEOs in hotels and how COVID-19 is affecting their business. The purpose of this source is to show how the hotel industry is negatively impacted by COVID-19.  Majority of the CEOs are concerned with two things: employee retention, and liquidation. Some of the CEOs also have hotels in China and share information on how their hotels are slowly coming back to life.  It also shows some of the plans Trump has put in place for small businesses. They also talk about the whole ecosystem of tourism including hotels, restaurants, and airlines and how they are affected by COVID-19.  I think this will provide good evidence of the hotel industry since the information comes from some of the top hotels in the country's CEOs.  

ABC15 Arizona. (March 18,2020). COVID-19 Crushing hotel industry  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfoMQEgCJ7Y 
This is a YouTube video of a news broadcast of ABC15 in Arizona.  It is considered a journalistic secondary source. I can tell it shows the perspective of the hotel industry, because of the title of the video and its content. The main purpose of this source is to show how negatively the hotel industry has been impacted. Nearly 4 million jobs could be lost nationwide.  COVID-19 is a catastrophic event to happen to the industry and it will take a long time to recover. It is more severe than 9/11 and the 2008 recession combined. This source provides good evidence, because it has interviews with hotel employees and is from a large news source. 

American Hotel and Lodging Association (2020)  Covid-19s Impact on the Hotel Industry.
https://www.ahla.com/covid-19s-impact-hotel-industry 
This is a fact sheet from the American Hotel and Lodging Association about how COVID-19 has impacted the hotel industry. You can tell it shows the hotel industry's perspective,because it is from the American Hotel and Lodging Association. The main purpose of this article is to provide a quick fact sheet so people can really understand the severe damage done to the hotel industry. More than 7 out of every 10 hotel rooms are empty across the United States.  Hotels have already lost at least $7.5 billion in room revenue. If it continues down this track there will be a loss of $3.5 billion a week and will only continue to get worse. Hotels are forced to lay off many of their employees. I think this source will be good evidence, because it puts dollar amounts to a lot of the information I already know, so I will really be able to tell how bad the damage is.  

Hung, K.K.C., Mark, C.K.M., Yeung, M.P.S. et al. (2018) The role of the hotel industry in the response to emerging epidemics: a case study of SARS in 2003 and H1N1 swine flu in 2009 in Hong Kong. Global Health 14, 117  https://doi-org-proxy1-cl-msu-edu.proxy2.cl.msu.edu/10.1186/s12992-018-0438-6
The authors are all highly educated on public health.  They use case studies from the SARS and H1N1 outbreaks, to assess how viruses spread within a hotel.  The increasing complexity of frequent international travel opens an ideal route for local outbreaks of infectious disease to becoming global pandemics.  Hotels are the perfect place for a virus to get spread. Hotels in China with international travel have shown us this, since people will come stay in a hotel then take it back to their countries.   It shows how other viruses spread within a hotel, and that will give more reason as to why hotels had to be cautious and why international travel has to stop.

Post Staff Report (March 27,2020). Here’s a breakdown of the $2T coronavirus bailout. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2020/03/27/heres-a-breakdown-of-the-2t-coronavirus-bailout/
The New York Post is a reliable source, since it did have accurate information about the coronavirus bailout. I went found this source, because I originally just needed a date for when the bailout was signed, but I ended up also get information on what the money would be used for within small businesses.