If you're going through hell, keep going. - Winston Churchill
Beginning our 3rd year of hotel ownership
We started our third year of hotel ownership with great optimism! The rebuilt hotel was spectacular, and we were well booked in early 2020.
Then we started hearing rumors about a strange new virus spreading the world.
We had visitors from the U.S., Canada and Italy in the early weeks of March 2020, but we felt safe in our corner of the world despite the strange news we were hearing from other countries.
On March 6th, 2020 we heard about the first confirmed case of the virus in Costa Rica after a tourist from New York tested positive, but we weren’t really sure what that meant.
A few days after my birthday, Mark and I were visiting friends who owned a hotel in another part of Costa Rica when virus concerns started ramping up. We heard that Tom Hanks was infected, and people were wondering if he’d survive! Our friends started receiving cancellations for their hotel, but we were still convinced it was all a false alarm. There had been other viruses that had stirred up concerns in recent years including West Nile, SARS, MERS, and Zika. This was just another one of those, right?
Then on March 12, 2020, we were stunned to learn that Costa Rica declared a national emergency and announced that it was closing its borders to incoming travelers on March 18th to fight the coronavirus pandemic. Oh no! Nearly all our guests were foreign, so closing the borders meant our guests would not be able to visit.
And I thought we were on an upswing. Not anymore.
Immediately, I was inundated by an influx of emails and phone calls from guests about their upcoming trips. Guests were increasingly concerned and panicked. Would the borders reopen? Who knows?! Should they still come? Please yes! Would they be able to return home? I think so? Should they cancel? Please no! Would we return their deposits? Not our policy, oh crap give money back?! Could they rebook? Maybe?
Oh. My. God. I had no good answers. We were scrambling, as was the rest of the world, to navigate this big, big change. I was increasingly concerned and panicked too!
We didn’t know anything except that the border was closing on March 18th and expected to reopen on April 12th – in time for the busy, tourist week of Holy Week – Semana Santa.
I figured guests coming into Costa Rica before the borders closed would be able to vacation with us and still take their scheduled return flights back home. I was wrong.
Airlines began cancelling return flights out of Costa Rica immediately. Guests that had trips planned during the next month started canceling, one after another.
Within days, our calendar was empty.
On March 19th, our final guest departed the hotel for their flight out of Costa Rica.
With no guests, no one booking future visits, no revenue coming in, borders closed and increasing nervousness among our staff and other Costa Ricans, we were forced to close the hotel again.
If you’re going through hell, keep going. We had no other choice.
We quickly made a plan for this ‘unplanned’ shutdown. We knew we were going to be closed for a minimum of a month until the scheduled border reopening date in mid-April.
We closed each villa and stored all the linens. Our storage room wasn’t big enough to hold everything, so we decided store it all in one of our newly built air-conditioned Suites. That way we could keep everything clean and dry and when we were ready to reopen, we could get it all put back together with a quick turn-around.
We packed up pool chairs, umbrellas and dining room furniture. We shut off hot water heaters and did a deep cleaning of the entire hotel.
Mark and I also made the difficult decision to temporarily lay-off our employees.
We spoke with our lawyers and checked the regulations with the Ministry of Labor in Costa Rica to make sure we were going about the process the correct way. Correct way? These were unprecedented times. No one had a roadmap for this!
With sadness, we told our team and assured them that we would bring them back as soon as we could. Everyone was scared about what was happening. We wished everyone well and said our (hopefully) short-term goodbyes.
Then on March 25th, the Costa Rica Institute of Tourism declared the tourism sector in a total emergency and calamity state expecting a ‘zero visitors season’ for at least three months. Oh. My. God. What else could go wrong?
Three months was longer than the border closure was planned! It didn’t look like travelers would be coming to Costa Rica any time soon.
Now I was more concerned and panicked! And sick to my stomach.
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
Being in Costa Rica at this time, I felt pretty removed from the panic ensuing in the U.S. and the rest of the world. At the time, there weren’t many cases of the virus in Costa Rica and none in our small area. Costa Rica was trying to take a proactive approach to keep the virus contained by closing the borders. People in our area were only just starting to hear about things like ‘leaving your groceries in a quarantine area before bringing them into the house’ or ‘tapping elbows to greet someone’.
I called my kids who were both in the U.S. wondering if I should somehow return. Our daughter was living in Chicago, and our son was still in college. I wanted to make sure they were safe and find out what they were hearing and seeing. They said that supplies like toilet paper and disinfectants were flying off grocery shelves. Cities were shutting down and beginning to ‘shelter in place’. But they both said they were fine and safe.
Mark and I decided then that we would stay at the hotel. By ourselves.
We were well stocked to say the least. Because we had a hotel full of guests at the time we shut down, our food and drink storages were completely full. We had just filled our freezers with meats and fish, and we had an abundance of vegetables growing in our garden. We had enough food for 22 guests for about 2 weeks – and enough for the two of us for months! That meant we wouldn’t have to go to town for a while.
Mark decided that this closure might be a good time to work on some (more!) projects so we decided to keep our 2 maintenance guys working for the next month or more. Both Alexito and Flaco had been with us since the beginning and Alexito was talented as both a housekeeper and maintenance person. That way we could keep the hotel in good physical shape and continue working on small projects while we were closed.
With each passing week, more guests were cancelling, and the Costa Rican government was extending the border closure as covid cases increased throughout Costa Rica.
In one way I wanted to be back in the U.S. near my children, and on the other hand, I knew that the way Mark and I were living - outdoors, in lots of sunlight and well separated from neighbors and others in town - was a good thing.
We actually had the best possible lock-down situation. A luxury hotel with all its amenities, a well-stocked bar, pantries full of food, a garden bursting with vegetables – all for just the two of us.
If it wasn’t for the fact that we were losing money every day we were closed, we might have enjoyed it a lot more. Our 3rd year of hotel ownership was to be another financial wipeout!
I was still, as were many, filled with a lot of anxiety and uncertainty of what was to come.
It seemed the world was going through hell.
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
The world had no other choice.
It’s hard to believe this was 5 years ago. How did you feel in the beginning days/weeks of the pandemic? Did you think it was real? How did you feel in lockdown? Share any thoughts below.
Oh my! This brings me back to the early days, when everything was a bizarre, surreal unknown. Your situation reminds me of the book I Wish You Were Here by Jodi Picoult. Your situation was entirely different, of course, but the character in that book was on an escapist, lush island that felt worlds away from reality, in a way.
The dichotomy of reality and your surroundings must’ve been unimaginable, almost like stepping into another dimension.
I can’t imagine your fear of wondering what was going to happen next or if you could survive another significant financial loss like that.
What a perfect quote for that time.
What a crazy time that was for the world, and I can't imagine what you two were thinking and planning on what to do next.. My husband and I were to be married on June 20, 2020. Our caterer would not return our deposit for the wonderful dinner we were going to have catered for our small guest list of around 50. We were going to be married by our priest, but he died about a month before, and the place we were to be married closed down and would not reopen until sometime in July. We made so many plans and had to cancel -- we were up to Plan K by that time. We just felt, screw it, we called a local priest and he agreed to marry us on March 26th, a Thursday. What a nightmare everything was, but so many funny memories. We are celebrating 5 years on Wednesday.