New York Hotels on the Comeback and Walker Hotel Tribeca Offers Month-Long Celebration
2020 was a terrible year for the hospitality industry. But there are glimmers of home in the first quarter of
Ivy Griffith
2020 was a terrible year for the hospitality industry. But there are glimmers of home in the first quarter of 2021 as hotels begin to reopen and people begin to travel again. And like a flower just starting to bloom, these hotels are becoming something new and beautiful. Travel in 2021 won’t look like travel in 2019 – but there’s plenty to look forward to. In Tribeca NYC, the Walker Hotel is launching a month-long celebration culminating in an Earth Day event. With wanderlust in our hearts and new and exciting ways to experience this world we’ve missed for the last year – now may be the perfect time to explore your favorite New York travel locale.
Walker Hotel Tribeca Promises Room to Grow
The Walker Hotel is offering a month-long celebration of it’s new location in Tribeca. With a focus on Earth Month, the opening celebrations will culminate in an Earth Day event and offer guests “Room to Grow.”
Among the highlights of the month-long festival-like experience:
- Life on the ground: a tour for locals only, celebrating essential workers and community members. The first event will focus on bike messengers and a bike tour will take locals through what a day in the life looks like.
- Fashion: a sustainable fashion event with Global Fashion Exchange – SwapAteria – where the entire second floor of the hotel will turned into vintage swap shops with supporters like the CFDA.
- Getting to know: a creatives meet and greet event.
- Relaxation: your own in-room CBD oil.
A press release for the hotel explains:
“Walker Hotel Tribeca has opened its doors. Creating a sense of place for the community, the hotel invites guests and neighbors from all walks of life to a respite in the midst of the vibrant city. As the hospitality community and New York comes back to life, hotelier Atit Jariwala, the CEO of Bridgeton Holdings, sets out on a pro-people mission across the portfolio [Walker Tribeca, Walker Greenwich Village, Marram Montauk], with a focus on dozens of small gestures for individual and community wellbeing and growth.
With its purpose-driven mission, Walker Hotel Tribeca will launch a month of programming dubbed ‘A Room to Grow’ kicking off on April 6th with an intimate party for family and friends, where the guests of honor are the hotel’s employees. Jariwala and friends will enjoy light bites and craft beers from Brooklyn based, women-owned Talea Beer Co.
Other month-long programming with a mission to give back to people includes:
- A Mile in their Shoes – Walker Hotels will invite its guests to shadow a community member for a day in the life on April 2nd. Guests will have the opportunity to tour the City with New Yorkers who play an iconic role in the city, in order to see things through their lens and more. A weekly program for the hotel, the first installment will chronicle the day in the life of integral bike messengers, offering guests bike tours of New York City.
- Custom In-Room CBD – Walker Hotels has partnered with oHHo to create an organically grown, sustainably sourced, full spectrum CBD oil delivered to guest rooms on Tuesday, 4/20.
- Meet the Creatives – Walker Hotels will launch a in-house seasonal podcast, ‘Meet the Creatives,’ on April 20th in Walker Hotel Tribeca’s lobby. The first episode will include Jariwala and oHHo Founder Nicola Stephenson discussing the economy of the CBD world. Meet the Creatives will be available on 4.20 and will kick off his residency.
- Do Just 1 Thing – In order to encourage guests to take individual actions to make a positive impact on the planet, Walker Hotels, in partnership with the Earth Day Initiative, will be including drop cards in room with actionable items that guests can partake in. With a quick scan of a unique QR code, guests will be led to prompts listing simple, actionable items they can partake in.
- Come Early & Stay Late – Kicking off in April, Walker Hotels will launch a new package through the spring and summer that invites guests to have a long weekend with early check in on Friday and late check out on Monday at no extra cost.”
And the Earth-focused celebration won’t ignore Earth Day itself; the release adds, “On Earth Day, April 22nd, Walker Hotel Tribeca will be adorned with recycled fabric flowers and will host a sustainable fashion experience event: SwapAteria. A partnership with renowned sustainable fashion expert Patrick Duffy and the Global Fashion Exchange, an international platform promoting sustainability in the fashion industry, the event will be the first of its kind hotel experience: SwapAteria will take over the second floor of the Walker Hotel Tribeca, transforming each guest room into individual swap closets featuring curated vintage collections and second-hand items from brands such as Model Mafia, Maison Murasaki, The Canvas, Re: Tailors Manocha Bespoke X Georgie, Now for Tomorrow, Carmen Gama + Carolina Bedoya: MAKE ANEEW – to name a few. The unprecedented event will support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in an effort to educate consumers about sustainable fashion and fair trade and provide a solution to the vicious cycle of over consumption and over production precipitated by the fashion industry.
‘Our partnership with Walker Hotels is our first hotel partnership and furthers our mission to bring swapping to the masses, offering a unique opportunity to change how we engage with fashion,’ said Patrick Duffy, Founder of Global Fashion Exchange. ‘On average, every American throws away 70 pounds of clothing and textile every year, but up to 95 percent of textiles could be recycled. SwapAteria is a beautiful intersection of our mission and that of Walker Hotel’s: a collective action to give back.’”
NYC Hotels Open and Ready for Business
It’s not just the upcoming and eagerly anticipated Walker springing to life this Spring. All across New York, as vaccination rates rise, people are returning to the places they’ve been kept from for a year. Hotels are starting to reopen in greater capacity, and events are returning to big cities. In places like New York and Las Vegas – people are gathering again for the first time in a year.
For an industry like hospitality that’s been devastated by necessary restrictions, it’s a breath of fresh air to know that the advent of the vaccine meant the beginning of the end of their suffering. Now they can open their doors to guests again and know people will be as safe as possible – something the people-centered hospitality workers are celebrating.
The New New York Normal
While the industry stretches and comes back to life, things are most assuredly still different from the world we knew in 2019. One report by ABC 7 in New York explored the ways public life in 2021 will be different for now, predicting a return to near-normal in 2025:
- A shift in demographics: A lot of families were forced or chose to move out of the city during the pandemic. But their departure offers opportunity for those looking to get a foot in the door of NYC. While some will return, more will fill their place and these newcomers are likely to be slightly poorer but tech-savvy and eclectic, adding diversity to an already diverse city.
- Broadway: so much of New York’s recovery hinges on Broadway returning to near-normal. One of the city’s biggest tourism draws, the Broadway industry in NYC keeps alive more than just culture, it offers jobs, stability, and familiarity in a world in desperate need of all three. The theaters are working on ways to bring people safely back, and a Broadway experience in 2021 will feel a little weird – but it can still be done safely.
- Tourism: travel to the Big Apple is slowly resuming with the vaccine roll out. 38 million people are predicted to visit the city by the end of the year. While that’s about half the number of pre-pandemic visitors, it is significantly higher than those who visited in 2020. Per ABC 7, “‘Well, we are placing a lot of hope into the third quarter of 2021 simply because of the vaccine rollout and the enthusiasm of people to travel,’ said Charles Nolan, the general manager of Big Bus New York.The city’s marketing the ‘new’ New York to people who live within driving distance first, then branching out from coast to coast as more people get vaccinated and eventually selling the city to the world once again.”
- Restaurants: the NYC restaurant industry was hit hard, but most adapted by offering safely distanced outdoor spaces; a popular option that’s likely to stay, at least for the next few years. As tourists return, NYC’s restaurants will as well.
- Hotels: like so many cities across the globe, NYC saw dozens of hotels close their doors in 2020. More than 140 were forced to shutter due to unsustainable operating costs or non-existent customer bases. Now, however, with the return of tourists and iconic locations like Broadway performances, the hotels that survived are ready for the next boom.
With Walker Hotel in Tribeca one of many beautiful places to visit in NYC this spring, the city is sure to draw home-weary travelers. As hoteliers can see the light at the end of the tunnel and focus on moving forward, guests are lining up to return to the city that they love.