I am not going to mention all the usual terms being overused right now, but it goes without saying that the hospitality industry is experiencing a challenging time. Recently, I had the opportunity to get to know Gabbie Riley. She shared her story that was picked up by CNN and Good Morning America, “the day I woke up to find my industry had vanished.” Sadly, this is the current narrative of our industry and the wonderful people who make it special.

All of us are going through a lot and we can choose how we want to respond. Those of you reading this post are choosing to use our current circumstances to create our own stories. We are open to trying new things and new opportunities that we otherwise would have passed up. Let me use myself as one example. I have grown my core business of handling only the group meeting and event needs of our clients to:

• Assisting our clients with their virtual and hybrid needs by providing the best providers of technology, production, and digital event support with our certified digital providers.
• Handling all our client’s individual travel needs through our partnership with Morrissey Travel (www.morrisseytravel.com) which specializes in total travel management.
• Helping our current clients and new customers with their luxury home stay needs by offering Omnifique (www.omnifique.com ), a luxury home stay provider, combining the security and familiarity of home with the dedicated care of an elite 5-star hotel.

In addition to these new initiatives, I am personally spending time improving my leadership and sales skills. The expertise, skills and training that enabled me to get to 2020 will not be enough to carry me into 2021 and beyond. It is up to me and I must take the actions necessary to achieve my desired results.

This is the time for all of us to improve our skills to ensure that we not only survive this time…but thrive coming out of it. Our industry is going to prove our resilience and how vital we are to the world economy. The best of the best will survive…and thrive.

What are you doing to grow and improve? How are you adding more value to your current clients? What new opportunities are you pursuing? Those that are taking action are the ones that will lead our resurgence. Come join me on one of my teams as we rise again in the hospitality industry!