Latest news with #DoyinsolaOladipo
Yahoo
21-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
US hotels boost background checks as migrant scrutiny grows
By Doyinsola Oladipo NEW YORK -U.S. hotel hiring managers ordered more background checks in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024 amid growing scrutiny of foreign-born workers in the hospitality industry, according to a leading human resources and recruitment management company. In June, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said it was reversing guidance issued that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were not to conduct immigration raids at farms, hotels and restaurants. President Donald Trump has sought to end temporary legal status for hundreds of thousands of migrants in the United States and vowed to deport millions of undocumented people in the country. Hotel hiring managers requested 36% more background checks from January to June 2025 compared with the same period in 2024, according to Hireology, which tracks hiring and employment trends across a thousand U.S. hotel properties. "Companies are certainly far more cognizant of that than they've ever been, and they don't want to be caught up in or be accused of lax hiring practices when it comes to verification of immigration status," said Patrick Scholes, Truist hotel equity analyst. At least one-third of workers employed or supported by the U.S. travel industry are immigrants, according to the U.S. Travel Association. In 2024, hotels directly employed more than 2.15 million people, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association. Total hires across 1,000 hotels increased 22% to over 8,000 workers. Increases in the most in-demand roles such as front desk associates, housekeepers and cooks were flat or grew slightly year-over-year. About 34% of housekeepers and 24% of cooks are foreign-born, according to 2023 data from the U.S. Census Bureau and Tourism Economics. (Doyinsola Oladipo in New York; Editing by Leslie Adler) Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
18-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Transatlantic airfares slump as Western Europeans skip US travel
By Doyinsola Oladipo and Joanna Plucinska NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) -Airfares from Europe to the United States have dropped to rates not seen since before the pandemic, as travelers from Western Europe lead a pullback in travel to the U.S. that is expected to continue through at least July. Overseas arrivals to the United States fell 2.8% in May from a year ago, according to preliminary data from the U.S. National Travel and Tourism Office within the U.S. Department of Commerce. Travel from Western Europe fell 4.4% in May although travel from Eastern Europe rose 4.6% in the same period. Forward bookings suggest sustained declines are on the horizon, with total inbound bookings to the U.S. in July down 13% year-over-year, according to OAG Aviation, an analytics firm. Transatlantic airfare has been declining since the first quarter when Europeans started reconsidering travel to the U.S. after President Donald Trump suggested annexing Greenland, launched a global trade war, and issued orders that focus on stricter border policy. A stronger dollar has also deterred some trips. In March, travel from Western Europe fell 17% year-over-year, according to the NTTO. Average round-trip economy airfares for over 50 routes from the U.S. to Europe in the first quarter were down an average of 7% year-over-year, with rates to fly between Atlanta, Georgia, and London, down 55%, according to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics firm. As American consumers have been bargain-hunting and waiting closer to their departure dates to finalize travel plans, the decline in demand from Europe is another factor contributing to cheaper travel. "Fewer seats filled by European travelers to the U.S., and a slower pace of growth in U.S. outbound to Europe than last year, will tend to cast 2025 as a tougher year to make money on transatlantic routes," said Aran Ryan, director of industry studies at Tourism Economics, a subsidiary of Oxford Economics. This summer, the price of round-trip tickets from the U.S. to Europe is down 10% compared with a year ago, travel booking app Hopper said. Average fares of $817 per ticket are in line with prices to Europe in the summer of 2019 before the pandemic. Major carriers, including Air France KLM and Germany-based Lufthansa, expect slowing activity. Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said the company expects weaker demand in the third quarter, while Air France KLM CEO Ben Smith said the company is seeing a "slight pullback" in transatlantic traffic and will slash prices to keep cabins on its transatlantic flights full. Airlines including Lufthansa and U.S. air carrier United Airlines say higher demand from U.S. travelers flying to Europe is offsetting the decline of Europeans flying the opposite direction. United said international bookings from Europe fell 6% in the first quarter, but added that U.S.-originating demand made up for the pullback. Rival Delta Air Lines said 80% of its long-haul international demand originates from the U.S., and fares in the region are "significantly higher" than in the rest of the world. Lufthansa said it plans to market its transatlantic flights to more Americans given the higher demand, despite travel from Western Europe showing moments of recovery. Travel from the region to the U.S. increased 12.1% in April before falling again in May, according to data from the NTTO. As of mid-May, there are 4.3% more international flights scheduled to depart from U.S. airports for international destinations this summer, said Hopper. "We feel really good about the transatlantic market," American Airlines CFO Devon May said at a Wolfe Research transportation and industrials conference in May. Sign in to access your portfolio
Japan Today
13-06-2025
- Business
- Japan Today
How crucial is immigration for U.S. hotel industry?
The Marriott logo is seen at the New York Marriott Marquis at Times Square in New York, U.S., February 15, 2017. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo By Doyinsola Oladipo A U.S. crackdown on foreign-born workers could spell trouble for the hotel and hospitality industry, which has lobbied for years to expand the pathways for immigration to the United States to help fill over 1 million job vacancies. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would issue an immigration order soon, following a social media post in which he cited labor issues in the farm and hotel industries stemming from his immigration crackdown. But on Friday, the Washington Post reported that no such policy changes were under way, according to three people with knowledge of the administration's immigration policies. IMMIGRATION AND HOSPITALITY In 2024, travel supported the jobs of 15 million U.S. workers and directly employed 8 million, with approximately one-third of those workers immigrants, according to the U.S. Travel Association and American Hotel and Lodging Association. There are about 1 million job openings in 2025. Hotels and resorts have struggled to find enough Americans willing to work hospitality jobs, including seasonal or temporary jobs at ski resorts and amusement parks. The leisure and hospitality industries have quit rates higher than all other industries. The accommodation and food services subsector has experienced a quit rate consistently around or above 4% since July 2022, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. About 71% of the hotels that had job openings were unable to fill them despite active searches, according to a 2024 survey conducted by AHLA and Hireology, an employee management platform. LOBBYING EFFORTS U.S. Travel and AHLA have lobbied Congress for broader pathways for legal immigration in an effort to close these gaps. The industry's priority was to push for expanding the H-2B visa program, which was capped at 66,000 visas a year, to bring more seasonal workers to the United States. In March 2024, then-President Joe Biden signed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, which authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to increase the number of H-2B temporary nonagricultural workers if the agency determines there are not enough American workers "willing, qualified, and able to perform temporary nonagricultural labor." DHS and the Department of Labor in December published a joint temporary final rule increasing the limit on H-2B non-immigrant visas for fiscal year 2025. The industry also supported legislation that looked to make it easier for temporary workers to return to the U.S. and allow people seeking asylum to work as soon as 30 days after applying for asylum. EXECUTIVE AND UNION VIEWS Industry executives, including those from Marriott and Hilton, have talked about the need for practical immigration solutions for years. "One of the most important issues in our industry for time and eternity has been workforce ... and the need for comprehensive immigration reform," Hilton Worldwide CEO Chris Nassetta said at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit in January, according to a report by Travel Weekly. Labor union Unite HERE, which represents thousands of workers in U.S. hotels, casinos, and airports, a majority of whom are immigrants, said the union will continue to fight "the increasingly arbitrary rules" about who can and cannot live and travel to the United States. The Culinary Workers Union, which represents hospitality workers in Las Vegas, rallied against escalating Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Nevada and pushed back against claims the Trump administration was only responding to people breaking the law. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Yahoo
13-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How crucial is immigration for the US hotel industry?
By Doyinsola Oladipo NEW YORK (Reuters) -A U.S. crackdown on foreign-born workers could spell trouble for the hotel and hospitality industry, which has lobbied for years to expand the pathways for immigration to the United States to help fill over 1 million job vacancies. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday he would issue an immigration order soon, following a social media post in which he cited labor issues in the farm and hotel industries stemming from his immigration crackdown. But on Friday, the Washington Post reported that no such policy changes were under way, according to three people with knowledge of the administration's immigration policies. IMMIGRATION AND HOSPITALITY In 2024, travel supported the jobs of 15 million U.S. workers and directly employed 8 million, with approximately one-third of those workers immigrants, according to the U.S. Travel Association and American Hotel and Lodging Association. There are about 1 million job openings in 2025. Hotels and resorts have struggled to find enough Americans willing to work hospitality jobs, including seasonal or temporary jobs at ski resorts and amusement parks. The leisure and hospitality industries have quit rates higher than all other industries. The accommodation and food services subsector has experienced a quit rate consistently around or above 4% since July 2022, according to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. About 71% of the hotels that had job openings were unable to fill them despite active searches, according to a 2024 survey conducted by AHLA and Hireology, an employee management platform. LOBBYING EFFORTS U.S. Travel and AHLA have lobbied Congress for broader pathways for legal immigration in an effort to close these gaps. The industry's priority was to push for expanding the H-2B visa program, which was capped at 66,000 visas a year, to bring more seasonal workers to the United States. In March 2024, then-President Joe Biden signed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, which authorizes the Department of Homeland Security to increase the number of H-2B temporary nonagricultural workers if the agency determines there are not enough American workers "willing, qualified, and able to perform temporary nonagricultural labor." DHS and the Department of Labor in December published a joint temporary final rule increasing the limit on H-2B non-immigrant visas for fiscal year 2025. The industry also supported legislation that looked to make it easier for temporary workers to return to the U.S. and allow people seeking asylum to work as soon as 30 days after applying for asylum. EXECUTIVE AND UNION VIEWS Industry executives, including those from Marriott and Hilton, have talked about the need for practical immigration solutions for years. "One of the most important issues in our industry for time and eternity has been workforce ... and the need for comprehensive immigration reform," Hilton Worldwide CEO Chris Nassetta said at the Americas Lodging Investment Summit in January, according to a report by Travel Weekly. Labor union Unite HERE, which represents thousands of workers in U.S. hotels, casinos, and airports, a majority of whom are immigrants, said the union will continue to fight "the increasingly arbitrary rules" about who can and cannot live and travel to the United States. The Culinary Workers Union, which represents hospitality workers in Las Vegas, rallied against escalating Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in Nevada and pushed back against claims the Trump administration was only responding to people breaking the law.
Yahoo
03-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Americans slow to book summer travel amid discount hunting
By Doyinsola Oladipo and Aishwarya Jain NEW YORK (Reuters) -This year's hottest summer travel trend? Waiting for deals. Americans are scaling back travel plans from flights to drives or waiting to book only if the price is right, a tell-tale sign of an industry slowdown that's got travel companies worried. Hotel summer bookings are either flat or falling from last year, and airline bookings are down even though airfares have also declined, as economic concerns fuel a pullback in spending. Travel companies including Delta Air Lines, Marriott International, and online travel agency Booking Holdings have withdrawn or revised their 2025 annual forecasts as U.S. demand softens. Airbnb flagged shrinking booking windows as consumers take a "wait-and-see" approach and book trips closer to their check-in dates. That has left companies with less visibility into the second half of the year. Delta said in early April it was premature to project the full year given macroeconomic uncertainty. United Airlines said there's a reasonable chance that bookings could weaken. "It's very clear that consumers are waiting to make decisions, including for the summer," Southwest Airlines CEO Robert Jordan said at the Bernstein Annual Strategic Decisions Conference in late May, adding that demand was stable but lower than expected in January. U.S. summer flight bookings are down 10% year-over-year, according to Flighthub, an online travel agency, even though airfares have dropped. "You can't keep an airline seat on the shelf in a warehouse. If you don't fill that seat tomorrow and the airplane flies, it's gone," Steve Hafner, CEO of Kayak, a Booking Holdings unit, told Reuters. Average summer flight prices declined 7%, with flights to long-haul destinations like Sydney, Australia 23% cheaper year-over-year, according to Kayak. Hotel summer bookings in major U.S. cities are flat-to-down year-over-year, according to data from CoStar. Average room rates are expected to rise roughly 1.3% in 2025, down from a 1.8% increase in 2024. "Travel is certainly under some pressure because people are not feeling as comfy as they once did," said Michael Chadwick, CEO of Fiscal Wisdom Wealth Management. WEAKER DOLLAR Travelers may start to find deals, such as a free third night for staying two nights, as hoteliers look to fill rooms, said Jan Freitag, national director of hospitality analytics at CoStar Group. That's what Jackie Lafferty is hoping for. Her summer plans have shifted from a possible family vacation in Hawaii or Florida to her home state of California instead. "By the time we broke down the cost of the flights, the hotel and the rental car, it looked expensive, it felt unreasonable," said Lafferty, a Los Angeles-based public relations director. The dollar's weakness has driven up the cost of overseas vacations. In March, American travelers surveyed by Deloitte had planned to increase budgets for their longest summer trip by 13%. By April, Deloitte's survey found Americans planned on spending about the same as last year. "The dollar is just not going as far and I think people are starting to realize that," said Chirag Panchal, CEO of the Ensuite Collection, a Dallas luxury travel concierge. The dollar has fallen about 10% since mid-January, when it was its strongest in more than two years. Panchal's clients, who had booked big trips to Europe last year, are either staying domestic or going to closer destinations like Canada or the Caribbean. "We might go international at the end of the summer. If we do, it will be last-minute and spur of the moment based on cheaper flights," said Rachel Cabeza, 28, an actor and fitness instructor based in New Jersey. For now, her only summer plan is a getaway to Martha's Vineyard in nearby Massachusetts. Sign in to access your portfolio
