BLOWING ROCK, N.C. – As co-owner/proprietor of Chetola Resort, Blowing Rock, N.C., Kent Tarbutton felt the pain of the massive lodging downturn caused by the global pandemic. However, he concedes that the situation at his multi-acre Chetola resort has definitely improved more rapidly when compared to colleagues in urban areas.
In fact, March and April were nothing short of prosperous. “March and April have always been the slowest months of the year,” says Tarbutton (pictured at the 2019 HX: The Hotel Experience Powered by AAHOA in New York). “However, in 2021 we’ve set records in reservations for both March and April this year against our 24 years. This year is looking very good, but I don’t think it’s the same for many urban locations.”
HX: The News sat down with Tarbutton to get his opinions on the state of the industry, prospects for rural resorts, and the overall health of the hospitality business.
HX: The News: What is the mindset of the rural resort owner in 2021?
Tarbutton: Very positive. I was just called by Appalachian State University. They do a forecast for the economic period up here. At first, I said, ‘If you would have asked me this in 2019 to 2020, I would have said you could have thrown a crystal ball in the air and hit it with a hammer and picked up the shards all over the floor and guessed how the economics were going to run.’ Guessing about the future is only as good as looking into the past. We typically look at the past to tell us the future.
HX: The News: What type of sales are the last to come back?
Tarbutton: The hardest part we still all face is group sales. I don’t even remember how many weddings we cancelled.
HX: The News: What’s the wedding situation now?
Tarbutton: I have 45 weddings booked over the next three months. People have been waiting to come out and do their celebrations, but it’s been held back of course because of COVID
HX: The News: What about the business-related sales?
Tarbutton: We don’t see that really coming back strongly yet in the business market.
HX: The News: What have you seen as a tourist of late in the urban areas?
Tarbutton: I was in Manhattan three weeks ago, and oh my gosh I’ve never been to Manhattan where there were less people and more things closed and nothing really happening. I’ve been to Manhattan probably 25 times in my life, and I’ve never been to a Manhattan like that. If you’re sitting there with a big mortgage and you just renovated a 1,500-room property, it’s a problem. Probably a third of the restaurants and stores were open. Plays are not happening yet, the comedy clubs are still closed.
HX: The News: Describe your peak season and your predictions for this year?
Tarbutton: When we hit summer, all these folks flock up to these beautiful mountains. There’s so much to do out here in the great outdoors—hiking and biking and golfing. You name it, we’re in the Blue Ridge Mountains. The park is 3,700 acres. It’s got 27 miles of trails. I think it’s been a combination of all of these things—the Covid, the riots, the politics. And I think urban living has driven everybody with cabin fever to seek out the mountains.
It’s so rural here that we never closed golf courses and trails because the population is such that we can stay away from each other and still do all of these things. We have a bocce course, we’ve got an outdoor disc golf course, fishing on the lake, a shooting reserve with archery. It’s never been busier. People are actively pursuing things that are safe to do with their families. You probably already know that groups pay less than the individual going on vacation. The net revenue has actually been better because the group sales fell away, but it was still people looking to get out of the big cities and enjoy time in a more rural, safer location.
HX: The News: What’s the level of precaution at your resort?
Tarbutton: We’re still wearing masks, we’re still taking temperatures at our gate, we’re still doing all the protocols. And now when the shots catch up and people are feeling more confident, we’re seeing that change. I was down at Atlantic Beach this past week, and that was a little disturbing. I saw 15 percent of the people in masks, even the wait staff and the chefs were not wearing masks. Now our state is requiring that, but there’s no penalty. Up here, we’re finding that about 85 percent of people are still following the protocols. We’re insisting on it. If you come up to our gate and don’t want your temperature taken, you can’t come in. It’s been very odd. It’s not what I would have expected. We battened down the hatches for three months. It was most unusual to see a turnaround in such a vivacious way. All of a sudden our numbers are beating what they were previously.
HX: The News: Which three months were you shut down?
Tarbutton: April, May, June and a little bit of July last year.
HX: The News: You mentioned the 45 weddings, is that a low amount? Is that normal?
Tarbutton: You would do about half that in a typical three-month period. It’s double that now. It’s higher than normal.
HX: The News: What holdover procedures will you continue post COVID?
Tarbutton: We’ve always been very clean, but we picked up the electronic sprayers that the hospitals used. They put a positive ion charge into the chemicals they spray so that it bonds to everything. Before we take our housekeepers in, we have masked folks in gloves going in and spraying down all these rooms and condos, and then five minutes later, the housekeepers come in and clean. I had seen it before in hospitals, so we got in line for that product early, knowing that would be a piece of gear that we would really want to maintain forever. It’s just good common sense.
HX: The News: Did you notice anything unusual due to the mask wearing?
Tarbutton: Among the 200 people who work here, about 10 to 15 percent of them get the flu every year. And so we’ll usually have 25-30 people who get the flu. Only five got the flue during this recent flu season. Masks have cut down on the flu and common colds that we traditionally see here every year. So some of those protocols we will leave in place because we’ve seen it has a good impact. Will people be in masks in a year? I doubt it. We feel like we’ve stabilized this current pandemic, and Americans more than other countries tend to forget quickly. We play more of a short game than a long game.
From the standpoint of cleaning protocols, we and many other hotels will remain in that mode forever. It just makes sense to continue. The handwashing stations—they’re just good ideas. And I think that we’re being trained so that that’s becoming more of a norm. Protocols for washing all the frisbees that come back from the disc golf course every time we will keep, and dunking the bean bags for the games in a solution. We’ve ripped apart our gym and completely rebuilt it this year. It’s just been completed. In our kids’ camp room we’ve taken away the small little intricate pieces that are too hard to clean, and put in bigger games and things like that, which allow it to be cleaned between each use. Those types of things I think will remain.
HX: The News: What is the vaccination and mask supply situation at your resort?
Tarbutton: All of our folks have been vaccinated. We’re happy about that, but at the same time we know that new things will come up and we have to be prepared for that. I think some things will need to remain in place forever. We already had N95 masks and gloves stocked from the SARS pandemic 10 years ago. We happily kept that supply, so we were able to use them when COVID started, so at least we were somewhat prepared with all that gear. I think that’s the lesson we’ve all learned. Hospitals couldn’t get that gear. Some of those lessons hopefully will carry through in planning. It helped this time and I’m sure it will when and if it occurs again. That’s something else we’re recognizing. We read about things like this for years, and now it’s occurred, and I don’t think anyone thinks that this is the end of it with COVID-19. We’re seeing variations of it, but we’ll probably see something else as well.
HX: The News: Any other policies that might be carried over to a post pandemic world?
Tarbutton: Cancellation policies may well be carried over. As you’ve noticed in the industry, these have radically changed. Some hotels stuck to their guns and their policies and told people, ‘No, you didn’t cancel in time and we’re keeping all your money.’ That just isn’t going to be a norm anymore.
The other thing we’re seeing is real short term booking. Every Tuesday we look at where we are right now in comparison to the bookings on Tuesday of the previous year, and it has narrowed. We’re hitting better numbers, but if you look far out it would scare you because the bookings aren’t there. People are booking much, much, closer in. Part of that is due to cancellation policies. They want to be sure that they’re not going to lose their money in their vacation. And I think the other part is just being uncertain about what will be next. I just booked a trip to Hawaii next July, and that seems far out but it really isn’t. We checked to make sure everything was cancellable, and it was—within 48 hours of our reservation, at least for the airline. You’re seeing a lot of that now because people don’t know what the future holds so they don’t want to waste their money.
HX: The News: In 2019, you won the $5,000 at the HX: The Hotel Experience end-of-show drawing? We paid you?
Tarbutton: Yes. Found money is always good. Little did they know that was going to be the last show for a while.
HX: The News: Any plans to come to Manhattan for the Nov. 14-15 HX: The Hotel Experience Powered by AAHOA?
Tarbutton: I have it on my agenda. My wife loves Manhattan, so I hope to make it this year.