Expert Insight
NEWS from
Kate Nicholls UKHospitality Chief Executive
The ending for Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 satire Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb was originally going to be a huge pie fight involving everyone in the War Room, US President included. It would have moved the film from bleak comic satire into outright farce, with the most powerful men in the government lustily flinging custard in each other’s faces as actual bombs drop outside. The ending that made its way onto film instead sees the protagonists idly discussing the minutiae of a plan that may or may not be of any use, while a nuclear inferno rages across the world.
At present, it is difficult to know which ending we are living through. I can’t quite tell if we are amid a custard pie fight or watching a pointless spew of discourse debating useless plans as the world ends. Either way, Vera Lynn is warming up.
The cumulative impact of the COVID crisis and the shift back to increasing rather than diminishing restrictions on businesses have been a disaster and things are getting worse. The curfew has been a disastrous imposition for many businesses. It has eliminated revenue from those that were barely clinging on by their fingertips and it has wiped out entire staff shifts and meal sittings. Already, we have seen high-profile closures, the announcement of redundancies and we are going to see more.
It looks increasingly difficult to justify the introduction of the curfew, too. Cases of COVID linked to hospitality businesses have been
very low – as low as 3% as the curfew was brought in, according to Public Health England. It was supposed to make venues, and people, safer and stop the halt of the virus, but it has the potential to do exactly the opposite. News reports have focused on heaving streets and public transport as pubs and bars all kicked their customers out at ten on the dot. What it has achieved is a log jam of customers all forced to leave venues at the same time, and a downturn in much needed revenues.
The destruction caused by the curfew may be surpassed by new restrictions in Scotland: a lockdown in large parts of the country and what amounts to a lockdown in the rest of it. Businesses are being forced backwards at a time when they need encouragement, and support, to move forward. The package of support announced to offset the closures, just £40 million, is going to fall far short of what is needed.
Our sector has been forced to withstand the worst of this crisis over the year and there has not been a moment we have not been under immense pressure. It feels, though, like we are approaching a point of no return for too many businesses. The cumulative impact of many restrictions is reaching the point of unsustainability, right at the moment that new restrictions are being introduced and support is being withdrawn.
We are not past the point of no return for the sector, but we are getting perilously close. To use another Dr. Strangelove comparison, we are collectively flying at our failsafe points. There is still time for our Government to metaphorically broadcast the recall codes and pull businesses back from the brink. It needs to put down the custard pies down, remove the devastating restrictions on our sector and deliver proper support. If it does not, there will be only one ending.
6
October 2020
www.venue-insight.com
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