The Fate Of The Hotels During The Pandemic

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The Fate Of The Hotels During The Pandemic

Kakali Das

Hotels around the world have been shut for over 3 months with essentially zero revenue and having to bear the amount in fixed cost.

In the crisis as such, the hospitality industry has been a very tight industry, although it has been deeply affected by the pandemic. Every country has gone through different stages of lockdown, the impact of the virus in all the countries has occured at a different time.

With air borders sealed by India and no foreign or domestic travel permitted, the Indian tourism and hospitality industry is on the verge of extinction.

Now that we are slowly and steadily coming out of lockdown with the rules relaxing as well, the hotel chains have buckled up for the services. China was the first to open up and it was extremely slow in process – they started around 20% and have been increasing slowly alongside too many restrictions. Even though the lockdown is easing, it’s easing in sizes.

In conversation with Curly Tales, Karrie Hannaford, VP- Commercial Accor, India and South Asia said, “There were few hotels in India which actually didn’t close. We have 18 hotels of Accor which were temporarily shut in India. We also had other hotels which were kept open for healthcare workers, repatriation of people via flights”. In terms of the relief or the support from the government, no stimulus package has been announced for the hospitality industry yet.

Whereas, the governments of other countries have been extremely proactive, their tourism ministries have announced packages in order to rescue or give some amount of respite to the particular industry already. Jai Bhatia, vice president, Travel Agents Association of India, said they regret to note that over the last three months not one relief or urgent survival support had been provided to these sectors.

It seems that the government has abandoned the Hospitality Sector, which is one of the largest revenue earners in the country, be it in terms of income tax, GST, or foreign exchange. “Talks about relief plans might come by July or August”, Karrie said.

In terms of the directives or the guidelines announced by the governmentfor opening up of the hotels in consideration of the occupancy rate, Swimming Pools, Spas and Gyms might not open anytime soon. In terms of the Gyms, each state government will provide recommendations and guidelines toward the process of opening it. Health and safety edification has to come in place too and all of the hotels now are going through the new standard of operating procedures.

As restaurants have been asked to open with 50% of capacity, the scenario of hotels is a bit different. The reason behind opening up of restaurants with half the capacity is because of social distancing depending on the size of the restaurant and how feasible it is.

The VP of Accor said, “After a lot of researches, we found that this country is extremely resilient. I believe that India is great at recovering after the crisis. It demonstrated to us what necessarily drives the business, it’s the need to do business that drives the business. Business won’t resume if the consumer doesn’t have the confidence to get back to the market again and wanting to keep the economy running. We did a lot of consumer research around this and I think that the Indian market is very social, people love getting out around and that they can’t wait to get back into the state of normalcy”.

For the hotels it’s like the awakening of five senses, coming out of hibernation. It feels good to know that people are optimistic; going by the history we have always seen people and businesses bouncing back with time.Embracing the fear of travelling, of getting out of our homes and to live with that ‘fear’ as a shadow is the new normal from now on.

During the attack of 9/11 on New York and Washington DC, the travel industry almost got to its knees, destroyed. People couldn’t stop discussing that international travel would never resume, nobody would dare getting on an aircraft again.

But slowly and steadily new stages came into play and so much has happened until now that nobody even thinks of blinking an eye while going through the security machines, through the rigorous process of sanitation, social distancing including other safety measures for the sake of travelling again. How the attitudes of people towards life have evolved during the years is breath-taking!

On the other hand, since businesses rely on air travel, especially the hotel industry, it’s utmost important for the airlines to be back to normal. Accor, alongside wants to take steps and guarantee utmost safety once it resumes in full swing.

In terms of history we have forever witnessed people coming back and enjoying life the way it was post every crisis, big or small. The hotels have been primarily focusing on the travellers such as friends and relatives returning or coming infor re-unions; corporate market is slowly attempting to breath and for India it’s Ericsson which is successful in witnessing the light of the day so far.“All are cautious but no one said that they won’t travel again”, Karrie said.

According to the Vice President of Accor they are hopeful that hotels may reopen in July. But it would still take time for the hospitality industry to bounce back in terms of the economic aspect because instilling the consumer confidence is extremely important which will indeed take some time.

Images from different sources

29-06-2020

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