HOLLYWOOD, Fla. – After a long 14 months of COVID-19 closure, The Diplomat resort is welcoming guests back to its property.
Hollywood’s mayor Josh Levy joined a reopening event Tuesday and proclaimed June 1 as “Diplomat Beach Resort Day,” calling Broward County’s largest hotel “a landmark of Hollywood and South Florida.”
“The fact that we’re opening up today is pretty special to us,” said Laurens Zieren, the resort’s general manager.
He said The Diplomat is bringing back all of its pre-pandemic staff. In March, workers demonstrated outside the property, pushing to make sure they would still have jobs when the resort reopened.
“You can just feel the excitement of everybody being back at work,” Zieren said, adding that he’s thankful The Diplomat so far isn’t experiencing the staff shortages many other hotels and hospitality businesses are facing.
“They were obviously working in other hotels and other restaurants but as soon as we picked up the telephone and said, ‘Hey would you like to come back?’ they were all back,” Zieren said.
The Diplomat hosts about half a million guests each year.