Hotels throughout the country are particularly suffering because of the coronavirus, and Marion County is no different.
For the Magnolia Inn, the pandemic is causing a mass exodus of its client base.
“We did very well up until last week and were actually ahead of our numbers from last year. Then last week our phones were ringing off the hook with cancelations,” General Manager Sharon Russell said. “We went from being in a good place to no reservations.”
Russell said the hotel’s customers are oftentimes construction workers, government officials who support schools and hospitals and traveling doctors, but with so many places on lockdown and quarantines in effect they’re no longer traveling to Columbia for business.
The way Magnolia Inn uses universal precautions along with having a high standard for cleaning, prescribed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, it hasn’t had to make any adjustments to its operations but is taking extra cautionary measures anyway, Russell said. Employees of the hotel most affected are housekeepers, though, because with fewer rooms to service after a customer leaves the less it needs to staff them.
“This is going to be a wait-and-see because we’ve never had this happen and never been in this position,” Russell added. “Whenever a hurricane or tornado comes through, we’re staffing power companies and first responders like Red Cross people. Now it’s not a disaster that’s calling workers in. It’s something that is sending everyone home.”
In some areas where hospitals are being overrun with coronavirus patients, hotels are being used to house patients. Russell said she could foresee that being the case at Magnolia Inn, but she’s not concerned about that scenario.
“We’re used to using those types of sanitary measures, and we understand how the virus is spread,” she said.
The hotel is locally owned by Duff Capital Investors, which also owns a chemical company, and Russell said it’s fortunate because the hotel won’t face a shortage of cleaning products.
