Food & beverage
The new normal Even once ‘freedom day’ came and went and businesses were allowed to resume trading, normal service seemed like a distant dream. The first big hurdle was the so-called ‘pingdemic’, during which thousands of hospitality staff were ‘pinged’ by the NHS Covid-19 app and unable to come into work. At one point during the summer of 2021, six in ten hospitality businesses had staff self-isolating and four in ten were forced to fully or partially close their premises. These staff shortages were exacerbated by a
voluntary exodus. Since the start of the pandemic, thousands of people left for industries they perceived as more stable, while many European workers departed in the wake of Brexit. Although hospitality did witness some recovery during the autumn months, the arrival of the Omicron variant dealt a blow to festive trading. Normally, December is the busiest month of the year; according to UKHospitality, it is responsible for 25% of the industry’s annual revenues. But with a fearful public avoiding pubs, hotels and restaurants, sales plummeted by 40% compared with December 2019. “The government’s strategy was predicated on
allowing unrestricted trading over the summer period, and a healthy incremental recovery in trading until December,” says Nicholls. “The sector could then look at maximising profit revenue streams, rebuilding the shattered balance sheets and building back cash reserves. That hasn’t happened. So what you’re looking at is a three-to- six-month delay in the recovery.” A staunch advocate for the industry throughout
the pandemic, Nicholls has taken on what many would see as an unenviably challenging role. Tasked with mediating between the hospitality sector and government, she has provided a sympathetic ear to businesses every day. “They have been going through the greatest level of turmoil, the sort of devastating effect you see in real time on people’s livelihoods,” she says. “Businesses have struggled to survive, have been on the brink of collapse, have not been able to look after their teams. That has been the most challenging thing for me – to have been there as the sponge to absorb all of that, and the punchbag to allow them to have catharsis.”
A helping hand from the government While remarking that government support can never be enough to offset that level of loss, Nicholls is not interested in blaming the government for what has arisen. In her role, she was able to engage with ministers on a weekly basis, if not two or three
Hotel Management International /
www.hmi-online.com
times a week, to make sure that the sector’s needs were recognised. “I have to give credit to the government where it’s due – they put in place systems to make sure that they were triaging concerns from the industry,” says Nicholls. “Now, it’s always challenging to make sure that they’re always acted upon in the way that we would want. But the sector has had unprecedented access to ministers across all parts of government to try and co-create solutions.” She adds that over the course of the pandemic there have been 15 major financial statements from the chancellor, with support for hospitality announced in all of them. For instance, at the very start of the pandemic, the chancellor provided a wage support package as well as a moratorium on commercial landlord sanctions for businesses. More recently, he announced £1bn in financial grant support. “It’s been the first sector of the economy that the
chancellor references when he looks at what is needed to get the economy through this pandemic,” says Nicholls. “And it’s clear from what we’ve seen in the ONS GDP figures that he has been right to prioritise the hospitality sector, because when the sector is open and trading, we really turbocharge economic growth.” Her one gripe is that support could have been
better tailored to the businesses most in need. Support packages were whole economy solutions – unsurprisingly so, since they were rushed out in a matter of days – meaning there was no way of prioritising those businesses in danger of collapse. In an ideal world, businesses would have received monetary sums in proportion to their actual vulnerabilities, rather than the same help across the board. That said, she describes the existing support as “immeasurably helpful”. “There’s no doubt that the number of businesses that would have failed, and the jobs that would have been lost, would have been so much higher had it not
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Above: Many restaurants closed their doors, some permanently, as a result of Covid-19.
Previous page: Unmasking the future of hospitality – new safety features will be key to bouncing back after the pandemic.
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