Plaza Hotel to Reopen on May 20th – Extends Invite to “Return to NY”

By:  Benyamin Davidsons

The Plaza Hotel still holds a special place in New York City’s heart.  Despite a year of being shuttered due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the iconic hotel still brings up images of Central Park with its luxury guestrooms, and the classic feel only the 113-year-old hotel can offer.

As reported by Crain’s NY, the hotel has announced that it will be opening its doors once more, as early as May 20th.  “For the past year you’ve been asked to stay home, The Plaza is now extending its formal invitation to return to New York,” the hotel website states.

The landmark hotel, had recently changed owners in 2018, when Katara Hospitality, a hotel owner and developer owned by the Qatari sovereign wealth fund, acquired the property for $600 million from previous owners Sahara India Pariwar, Sant Singh Chatwal, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal’s Kingdom Holdings and Ashkenazy Acquisition.  The hotel kept the same operator, using Fairmont, an AccorHotels brand.

Tourism in the city remains devastated and hotels across the board are suffering.  Countless hotels in NYC were shuttered when the pandemic hit, and not all will be reopening.  Hotels to have permanently shut down include the New York Marriott Eastside, the Omni Berkshire Place, the Hilton Times Square hotel, the Novotel New York Times Square and the historic Roosevelt hotel.

As the pandemic’s wrath is now waning, mostly thanks to the vaccine rollout, things are beginning to look up for the tourism industry. Occupancy rates at NYC hotels came back to up to 65 percent by April 10, as per analytics firm STR.  Airport traffic is nearing pre-pandemic levels, shining optimism on the industry. On April 25th, over 1.5 million people passed through TSA checkpoints in the United States. That’s close to 12 times the number of peoples to pass an airport on the same day in 2020.

Some other high-end NYC hotels have already opened in April, and more are looking forward to reopening in May as well.  The Mandarin Oriental by Columbus Circle reopened on April.  The Dream Hotel Group’s Dream Midtown, where former Plaza Hotel owner Sant Singh Chatwal is a chairman, announced it will open May 14, while another of its hotels may open later in May. The Peninsula Hotel on Fifth Avenue will open on June 1.

Overall, the hospitality industry let go of 70 percent of its workers in 2020, as per Department of Labor statistics.  The Plaza Hotel has not yet disclosed how many jobs it will bring back, and did not reply to a request for comment from Crain’s.