Business View Magazine | May/June 2022

113 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 9, ISSUE 5 though. He’s also passionate about his people. “Motivation is one of the important things in our company,” he states. “And just not in our company, it’s for anybody. If you keep motivating your employees, I think that’s the best benefit you can get… advancement of employees is the most important thing.” Throughout the pandemic, Gautam checked on staff members regularly to let them know they weren’t forgotten, however, the outcome wasn’t always positive. He admits, “I lost a lot of employees… God bless them, their souls. You just never know from one day to the next, right?” he says, choking back tears. “Very tough.” The pandemic has been hard for everyone, everywhere, but the tourism industry suffered perhaps deeper than most. “We were the hardest hit,” Gautam says. “The industry lost about 3.5 million jobs in 2020. When the international borders were closed, cities became like a ghost town. Hotels and motels were completely shut down. According to the U.S. Travel Association, we declined 42% in 2020, which is nearly $500 billion from 2019.” To add to the dilemma, COVID had a crushing economic impact on the global supply chain. Facility managers were running the hotels, without the necessary goods. Gautam confides, “How can we effectively run the hotel or any industry? So, automatically what’s going to happen is that the prices inflate. And the supply chain is way behind because of labor issues.” To emphasize the fact, Gautam points to an order of supplies he made in 2019 for one of his hotels and is told the products are still in containers in California because there are simply no workers. Resiliency being the word of the times, the hospitality industry refuses to give up. As Gautam notes, “We are still struggling and trying to bounce back.” The labor issue is being felt keenly within IHRMC. Their staff has shrunk from 4500 employees pre-pandemic to 625 today. Thirty INTERESSANT HOTELS & RESORT MANAGEMENT