Company: L
Filing Date: 2025-02-11
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000060086-25-000036
Chunk: 237

Company: LOEWS CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-11
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 237
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. As a result of the suspended operations and lower occupancy levels, revenues were lower, while operating costs were not reduced to the same extent. In addition, Loews Hotels & Co had to implement a number of new measures for the health and safety of its guests and employees, which increased its costs. Loews Hotels & Co may have to implement similar responses to future pandemics or other outbreaks of contagious diseases, which may lead to similar or more severe effects.

As part of cost containment efforts at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Loews Hotels & Co and many of its service providers and suppliers severed or put employees on unpaid leaves of absence. When conditions improved such that increased staffing levels were required, finding and attracting talent to fill certain roles that were furloughed or eliminated was challenging for Loews Hotels & Co and certain of its service providers and suppliers, which affected Loews Hotels & Co’s ability to return to normal operations at certain of its hotels. Loews Hotels & Co and its service providers and suppliers may have to take similar actions in response to future pandemics or other outbreaks of contagious diseases, which may lead to similar or more severe effects.

The negative impacts of a pandemic or other outbreak of contagious disease on Loews Hotels & Co’s business may substantially exacerbate the other risks facing Loews Hotels & Co, including those described in this section, and such impacts may linger beyond the containment and mitigation of any such pandemic or outbreak.

The growth and use of third-party reservation channels adversely affects Loews Hotels & Co’s business.

A significant percentage of hotel rooms for guests at Loews Hotels & Co’s properties is booked through internet-based travel agencies and other intermediaries. In most cases, Loews Hotels & Co has agreements with such intermediaries and pays them commissions and/or fees for sales of its rooms through their systems. If such bookings increase, these intermediaries may be able to obtain higher commissions or fees, reduced room rates or other significant concessions from Loews Hotels & Co. There can be no assurance that Loews Hotels & Co will be able to negotiate such agreements in the future with terms as favorable as those that exist today. Moreover, these intermediaries generally employ aggressive marketing strategies, including expending significant resources for online and television advertising campaigns to drive consumers to their websites and other outlets. As a result, consumers may develop brand loyalties to the intermediaries’ offered brands, websites and reservations systems rather than to Loews Hotels & Co’s brands and reservation system.

Loews Hotels & Co’s insurance coverage may