Coronavirus and the hospitality sector

ended 18. July 2021

This morning at 09:30, the Office for National Statistics published a detailed report on the full impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the hospitality sector. The alert_responses of 4 small business owners are below.

3 responses from the Newspage community

Legend

Maddy Alexander-Grout

CEO at My VIP Rewards

"I'm not sure the hospitality sector will ever be the same again. It has been turned inside out by the pandemic and it will take years for the scars to heal. Many of the businesses we support are within the hospitality sector and their experience of the past 16 or so months has been brutal. Even though the economy is now open, there is still a lot of caution among the public and this will prevent a rapid recovery for hospitality businesses. There's a long road ahead."

Premium

Jo Ferreday

Managing Director at Sheer Edge

"Let's not kid ourselves. Freedom Day will not be a panacea for hospitality businesses. The sector has a long way to go and, if we went back into another lockdown, companies will drop like flies. "The pandemic has changed the way that all businesses operate, but the hospitality and events sector has most definitely been one of the hardest hit. "In March 2020 I wondered how on earth our 5-year old business would survive, given that 90% of the revenue we generated at the time was through Corporate Hospitality booking and Event support services, which evaporated overnight. "Fortunately, we adapted and were able to support our clients in their transition to running events virtually. The main theme in the events sector right now is the shift to hybrid events, a model that is likely to remain popular in the short to medium term, as the uncertainty generated by new Covid-19 variants lingers. "The main challenges we have is that we have no control over when and if our clients' events can take place; already this year we have had to move meetings and events to the autumn. There's still a huge amount of uncertainty and flux."

Premium

Craig Bunting

Co-founder at BEAR

"We've reached Freedom Day but for most businesses in the hospitality sector the Test and Trace app is an outright farce. It's destroying us, just as we are getting back to our feet. "While various Government schemes have provided a degree of support to hospitality businesses, the cost of the pandemic is still immense, both financially and psychologically. We now have to bounce back mentally exhausted and saddled with debt."