Yet again we expect bad news for the hospitality & events industry in the announcement today.
Hospitality venues are still going to need to remain closed for the foreseeable future.
This is despite a recent report that showed that only 4.1% of coronavirus exposure occurred in hospitality venues.
In addition to a recent survey finding that 48% of the hospitality businesses in the UK don’t anticipate being able to survive the next 12 months without further support.
This is all devastating for the hospitality industry and the individuals involved.
No one got into this industry because they thought it would be easy; we are entrepreneurs we are creative and innovative. As an industry, we have been pirouetting with pivots to adapt to weekly changes in the environment that we are operating, changes that could never have been anticipated.
We are a breed of resilient imaginative people who know that if you can see a problem you can find a solution, but there are always limits.
For many, it will be money that they finally run out of and for many that is not someone else’s money it will be their own; years of hard work saving and love for an industry that has become unviable in our current circumstances.
But for most what is more heart-breaking than the financial loss is that hospitality & event businesses are about bringing people together. The people behind these businesses have a passion for building welcoming environments with great food, great drinks and genuine hospitality then flinging open their doors and inviting their communities in. Places to laugh, to cry to make friends and to cement relationships.
We can be as pioneering as you like, we can turn our venues into takeaways or shops, we can invest in our outside spaces and offer you blankets and heaters and entertainment but what the industry is really about is not the spaces or the venues it is about bringing people together and fundamentally that just can’t be done in a pandemic.
Of course,, there is a future for the industry.
If anything, lockdowns and forced closures have made everyone realise just how important those visits to hospitality venues were. The missed birthday parties, the weddings, the celebrations the weekly catch up the annual event, or just the wander into your ‘local’ to receive a friendly smile from the staff.
Things we took for granted now explicitly discussed with longing.
The declining industry, as was before Covid, will have had an injection of creativity and innovation, we will see changes that will be for the better as every operator will have taken time to create improved ways to deliver to their communities and for some a new confidence with a new explicit understanding of their value and contribution.
But this is no consolation to those individuals in the industry who just will not have enough time and money to hold on.
I do weep for them.
They opened their venues to make people feel better, to create something special in their communities. It is not a stretch to claim that what operators were trying to do is to help make the world a better place. Hospitality venues really are that important. Humans are sociable animals we survive and thrive because of our connections to each other.
Those who put themselves out there and open their doors to invite you in are special and these people will be missed.
