SACRAMENTO, Calif., June 11, 2020 – Hotels throughout California will begin welcoming guests Friday as California counties lift travel bans for the first time since the COVID-19 outbreak in March.
Under revised California Department of Public Health guidelines, all but seven of the state’s 58 counties are permitting hotels to reopen this Friday and the majority of those are allowing individual and leisure travelers to stay at hotels. To ensure the well-being of guests and employees, hotels have implemented Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-backed health safety self-certifications programs, hotel-specific plans, and employee training.
Unfortunately, San Francisco and other Bay Area counties are not allowing hotels and other tourism industry mainstays to reopen and have not provided dates for when they will.
“It’s so good to be re-opening. Our hotels are ready; our employees are ready, and we hope our guests will be ready, too,” said Lynn S. Mohrfeld, President and CEO of the California Hotel and Lodging Association. “We know we have a long way to go to be back to normal business. Reopening this weekend gets us on that path to recovery.”
CHLA has added work-site specific plans customized for CHLA member properties to its highly regarded Clean + Safeguide and self-certification process to help hotels prepare for reopening. The customized plans include employee trainings, appropriated signage, regulatory forms and updates to the Clean + Safe Guide.
The Clean + Safe Guide incorporates recommendations from the CDC, the California Department of Public Health, and Cal/OSHA for guest and employee cleanliness, workplace cleaning and disinfecting, and further improved safety and cleanliness for the guest experience.
