Trump National Doral to close citing coronavirus order from Miami-Dade County
Trump National Doral will close the resort and golf club at 11 p.m. Monday to comply with an order from Miami-Dade County.
The order, released by Mayor Carlos Gimenez Saturday, allows hotel stays only in the case of a few exceptions, including medical personnel, journalists, first responders, and people who have been displaced by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In a letter to Doral golf club members, the club’s general manager, Carrie Ruiz, said “the very moment the restrictions are lifted, we will be back to business as usual!”
Business as usual may be a way off, as the number of people infected by the new coronavirus in Florida continues to rise.
As of Monday evening, Florida’s Department of Health announced the state total of confirmed cases had reached 1,227, and the death toll had risen to 17. Two of the new deaths announced Monday were in Palm Beach County.
Even before the county-wide restriction, hotels were hurting and laying off hundreds of workers. Oxford Economics, a Britain-based global analytics and forecasting firm, released figures Monday estimating Florida would lose more than 300,000 hotel-related jobs due to COVID-19. The study was released in conjunction with the American Hotel & Lodging Association.
Occupancy rates in the county’s 469 hotels — which total 150,000 rooms — plummeted from nearly 90 percent in early March to around 20 percent last week, according to Rolando Aedo, chief operating officer of the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Last year, Miami-Dade County agreed to reduce Trump National Doral’s assessed value for 2018 from $110.3 million to $105.6 million. Trump reported that he made $76 million from the Doral resort and golf club in 2018, down from $116 million in 2016.
This story was originally published March 23, 2020 at 5:24 PM.
