KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The return of the Big 12 Tournament is great news not just for sports fans, but also hotels.
Hampton Inn and Suites Kansas City Crossroads is one hotel happy to see an event filling their rooms.
"Currently our bread and butter is youth sports. So Big 12, you have Hy-Vee arena that's in West Bottoms. They have events that bring a lot of lift to the market for occupancy on weekends, and that seems to be our bread and butter currently," said Daniel Lock, director of sales at the Hampton Kansas City Crossroads.
For many fans staying at the hotel during a pandemic, they'll notice some changes to keep them safe, such as signs reminding guests to wear masks, social distancing, pre-boxed breakfast instead of a buffet and the hotel's "Clean Stay Program."
"All of our services throughout the hotel as well as our rooms are getting additional Lysol treatment, and then we seal the rooms so that no one enters that room from a housekeeping standpoint prior to the arrival after the room has been cleaned with disinfectant and Lysol," Lock said.
Lock said the hotel struggled financially like many businesses at the start of the pandemic. Despite a slow start, he said the hotel has slowly recovered and they're looking forward to the summer.
"The summer looks good, we're pacing really well. It's kind of been surprising too, the summer actually last year was surprising for us. There was a lot of road trip travel which you wouldn't have expected at first, but with international travel and flying being a little bit restricted, we saw an increase in road trips, so we get guests that were on their way to their destination and on their way back, which created a lot of lift in our occupancy," he explained.
