Ask a hotel owner what keeps them up at night in 2026, and workforce shortages might not be the first answer. A spring survey of 246 US hotel owners and operators conducted by the American Hotel and Lodging Association found staffing ranked behind four other worries. That order says something worth paying attention to about where hospitality actually stands this year.
The cost of goods and supplies topped the list, cited by 71 percent of respondents. Fluctuating demand and occupancy came next at 59 percent, followed by utility and energy costs at 50 percent and insurance premiums at 43 percent. Workforce shortages landed fifth, at 42 percent, even though more than half of the hoteliers surveyed still described themselves as somewhat or severely understaffed. Staffing has not gotten easier. It has simply joined a longer line of pressures competing for the same tight budget.
That longer line matters more than it sounds. US Bureau of Labor Statistics data puts leisure and hospitality job openings at 969,000 as of January 2026, up from 809,000 in November and 781,000 in December, with average monthly churn across the sector running around 5.1 percent over that stretch. Every open role and every early departure carries a cost, in overtime for the staff covering the gap, in onboarding for whoever fills it next, in service quality while the position sits empty. When that cost lands on top of pricier insurance and heavier utility bills, a bad hire or a fast exit stops being just a staffing headache. It becomes one more line squeezing the same margin.
When Every Line Item Is Tight, the Hire Has to Be Right
That is probably why the survey's other finding stood out just as much. Hoteliers are not only posting more openings, they are investing to keep the people they already have. Seventy percent raised wages, 54 percent added flexible scheduling, 54 percent extended hotel discounts and 31 percent expanded benefits. None of that reads like an industry in retreat. It reads like operators who have decided that filling a role and keeping someone in it are two different problems worth solving well, especially when there is less room in the budget to solve either one twice.
It is exactly the reasoning we built our own hospitality recruiting work around. Matching US and international hotels and restaurants with Italian hospitality talent trained through Italy's five-year istituto alberghiero system is not about adding names to a shortlist faster. It is about handing an employer someone who already knows the floor, the kitchen or the front desk, and who came looking for a career rather than a placeholder job, so the hire holds up under exactly the kind of cost pressure this survey describes.
Data referenced from the American Hotel and Lodging Association's 2026 hotelier survey, reported by Business Travel News, and the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The hotels handling 2026 best are not hiring the fastest. They are hiring so they do not have to hire again.