Courtesy / Scott Cowger
As both a small inn and conference center, the pandemic has been devastating to the Maple Hill Farm Inn in Hallowell, with most reservations canceled in March and April.
March 18, 2020
Early-season cancellations flood Maine hotels
Courtesy / Witham Family Hotels
Atlantic Oceanside in Bar Harbor is experiencing an increase in guest numbers this week, possibly due to out-of-staters seeking Maine’s open spaces.
Lodging businesses around Maine are experiencing early-season cancellations as a result of the coronavirus crisis.
“We are receiving very large volumes of cancellations for dates spanning the next several weeks, but not really much for cancellations beyond that,” said Stephen Coston, owner of the Inn on Mount Desert in Bar Harbor. “People seem to be taking a wait-and-see approach beyond the next 30 days or so.”
In Lubec, March reservations at the Eastland Motel usually help kick off the season by allowing the owners to get caught up on the winter’s oil bills and property taxes.
“However, when I looked at the reservation book this morning, it is empty for the remainder of the month,” said co-owner Heather Henry Tenan. “April is well below average.”
“As both a small inn as well as a conference center, this pandemic is devastating to us as a small business,” said Scott Cowger, co-owner of the Maple Hill Farm Inn & Conference Center in Hallowell.
“March and April are busy months for events and gatherings, and it looks like practically every event on our schedule for this time is being canceled or postponed. Most of our lodging reservations have also canceled, although we have acquired a few reservations from guests whose plans have changed because their flights or other vacation plans may have been canceled.”
“I’m hearing from innkeepers who are getting cancellations for the near future but not yet for the upcoming season,” said Dana Moos, director of lodging and hospitality brokerage at Swan Agency Sotheby’s International Realty. “I’m also hearing that, due to travel bans, a lot of travelers aren’t going to fly to Europe. Maybe they’ll do driving vacations. Hopefully that will be an opportunity to make up for early-spring losses later in the season.”
Many hotel cancellations are related to Gov. Janet Mills’ recommendation that all meetings of over 250 people be called or postponed, said Steve Hewins, president of HospitalityMaine.
“A few days ago when the governor recommended that all meetings over 250 be canceled or postponed, virtually all were, at least through April 12, and all the associated hotel rooms canceled as well,” Hewins said.
“Since then, individual bookings are being canceled. This is particularly difficult for the smallest properties like inns and independent hotels, which are at the bottom of their seasonality, and cash flow is the toughest. The American Hotel and Lodging Association just released a statement that occupancy rates are now below 20% and that hotels are closing.”
Uptick at one hotel
But the owner of one hotel said he’s actually seen an uptick in the number of guests for this time of year.
The Atlantic Oceanside in Bar Harbor was almost full this week, with many guests from other states like New Jersey and Pennsylvania, said Witham Family Hotels CEO David Witham, who owns 12 hotels in Maine, eight of them in Bar Harbor. Atlantic Oceanside is one of four of the properties that are open year-round.
“We are losing some early reservations, but we’ve seen a surprising influx from other people who are looking to get out of their areas,” he said.
Out of about 100 rooms that are kept open during the winter, 91 were rented Monday night.
“For a Monday night in March, that’s unexpected,” he said.
“We’ve seen some cancellations, but fewer than we would have expected,” added the company’s president, Pat Morgan. “We think that, once this flows through, we expect to get back on pace to our previous expectations. We’ve had some increases in revenue in the past few years and that was the expectation for this year.”
Bar Harbor was a refuge right after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, Witham noted.
“We hope that, similar to 9/11, Bar Harbor is seen a s a safe destination,” he said. “Even though there was a sharp decline in travel after 9/11, Bar Harbor survived quite well. We expect that again this year. We’re all working with social distances and Bar Harbor fits that mode of having fresh air and open space.”
Reservations have been coming in recently from guests who had trips planned abroad and are now revising those plans.
“They’re now looking to Maine,” he said.
Cancellations in waves
Along with the Eastland Hotel, Henry Tenan co-owns several rental houses in Lubec. Yesterday she was fielding a call from a guest who wanted to cancel two weeks in July.
Courtesy / Eastland Motel
April reservations at the Eastland Motel in Lubec are well below average.
“We fear the likelihood of filling it now is slim,” she said.
However, she added, “We’ve not had many cancellations for the summer yet, but we anticipate them happening if things continue the way they are now.”
The properties tend to be full from mid-June to mid-October, she said.
“We hope that, because we are rural that those wishing to get away come to see us,” she said.
At Coston’s Bar Harbor property, cancellations appear to be coming in waves, driven by the latest news around things like event cancellations, business closures and travel bans.
Courtesy / Inn on Mount Desert
Cancellations have come in for the next few weeks at the Inn on Mount Desert in Bar Harbor.
“Every time less becomes available for people to do or travel becomes more constrained, more cancellations appear for the affected dates, not surprisingly,” Coston said. “A few people have expressed that Maine has become their 'plan B' to international travel. However some of those folks are now already looking to cancel as the news worsens domestically and local restaurants and shops begin to close their doors.”
Cowger said, “While I foresee that we will continue to see canceled reservations as a result of COVID-19, I do believe that folks will want some cabin fever relief and smaller properties with just a few guest rooms, like ours, may attract them to make a reservation. Since we are an easy driving distance from Boston and New York, Maine may also see more visitors for getaways.”
However, he noted, the situation yesterday resulted in the layoff of the small inn’s one full-time employee.
Business preservation
Layoffs are a major concern through the hotel industry, said Hewins.
“They are trying to take care of staff that they need to lay off and how many they can keep on," he said of hotel owners. "Businesses are frankly in triage right now and, in order, the challenges are health and safety, business preservation, staff.”
Henry Tenan and Cowager both expect to cover the labor for much of their operations.
“We hire an average of 15 local people to operate the desk, clean rooms and help with maintenance,” said Henry Tenan. “As it stands, if nothing changes, it is more likely that my husband and I will do the bulk of the work this season, as we did 10 years ago when we bought the place.”
Most of Cowger’s employees are on-call for positions like housekeeping and banquet workers.
“Unfortunately, there won’t be much work for them during this period,” he said. “Since Vince and I as owners are here every day and we aren’t hosting any events, we’re doing more housekeeping and maintenance functions.”
One step at a time
HospitalityMaine posted timely guidance and information on its blog site this week.
“We push out a daily briefings to all members with detailed information, updates and new ‘hospitality-specific’ information each day,” said Hewins. “We are chief advocates for our industry at the state and federal levels and working closely with both officials and politicians to make sure our industry receives the support it needs. Longer term is a little over the horizon right now, but we know we’ll need to plan for that, hopefully sooner than later.”
Coston said, “In the long term, we expect normalcy to prevail. In the meantime, I wish I could say we have concrete plans in place for how to deal with all these near-term impacts, but the reality is that there’s no plan for something like this. It’s just taking it one step at a time at this point, because things are changing so rapidly and unpredictably. I’ve been in lodging my whole life and I’ve never seen anything like this.”
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