People of Miami

Marcelo Tenenbaum on the Miami recovery from COVID-19

Marcelo Tenenbaum, co-founder of Blue Road, a property development company, has been working to develop boutique hotels in Miami, and therefore understands the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the tourism and hotel industry.  Being a local property developer he is able to provide insight to where he believes the tourism, hotel, and real estate industries will be headed after the impacts of the Coronavirus outbreak.

Marcelo Tenenbaum owns and manages nine hotels in Miami Beach through Blue Road, including Ocean Reef, Riviere Aqua, Iberostar Berkeley, and others. Unfortunately, the crisis greatly impacted his business, dropping his revenue down to zero. 

Tenenbaum and Blue Road managed to survive, however, by continuing to work on his hotel development projects and using the funds allotted to the business by the federal government. Tenenbaum hopes his businesses’ recovery will continue to be strong, as tourism is a big portion of Miami and a decline will cause much upset for employers and workers. 

To keep his business going strong, Tenenbaum outlined his plan to keep customers feeling safe and healthy in his hotels. In 12-18 months, Tenenbaum expects the hotel industry to be fully recovered.

Marcelo Tenenbaum

“At the beginning, hotels will operate with a lot of new protocols for COVID-19,” said Tenenbaum. “Then, some of those will be relaxed as new medicine, treatment, and vaccines become available.” 

Marcelo Tenenbaum

In Blue Road’s hotels, Tenenbaum lists 12 new protocols that will be followed to ensure the health of its employees and guests. These include disinfectant foggers used in each room prior to guest arrival, UV light sanitizer for key card sterilization, mandatory PPE for employees, social distancing markers for floors, elevators, and public spaces, and many others.

Using these new protocols is what Tenenbaum believes will help him gain the trust of his guests during these delicate times, as well as communicating with them about the effort his business is putting in to avoid the spread of the virus. 

In addition to the comeback of the hotel industry, Tenenbaum believes that the real estate industry will boom after the pandemic. 

“I think residential real estate will increase, since people realize how great it is to be in South Florida, especially in single family homes,”.

Marcelo Tenenbaum

He adds that many Miami residents have increased their savings during this time, as they have received unemployment and stimulus checks, or even continued to work their everyday jobs. During quarantine, no one could go anywhere to spend money since everything was closed, so there was a lot of saving being done. Also, because interest rates are currently very low, Tenenbaum believes this could be a great time for first-time buyers to purchase real estate. 

For more information about Marcelo Tenenbaum, visit this website. 

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