Hotel maintains 57-employee payroll through pandemic

Talk about a to-do list.

The operators of the Holiday Inn Fort Myers Airport at Town Center found good use for the downtime forced on them by the pandemic, when occupancy fell to 20% or less a night: they wrote a four-page list of projects, from power washing the building to stripping and waxing the floors. Even better? The hotel received federal Paycheck Protection Program loans in early April, so it kept all 57 employees on the payroll.  “We got (the money) within 10 days of the program starting,” says Brian Holly of Holly/Field Hospitality, and a hotel managing director. “Then we had to decide, ‘what are we going to do with them?’”