UK Hospitality Round table 4th May

First speaker was Phil Tate from CGA whose firm gathers data from business leaders. His company is (obviously) seeing very low confidence in the market but has also learned that 80% of responders are actively planning for reopening and are reporting that it will take 2-4 weeks to be up and running again. They report that their customers wil base decision on where to travel to once the sector is open on how businesses behaved during lockdown (whether they retained staff etc). China’s retail sector has been open for 4 weeks now but is trading at 60% capacity and the likelihood is that the UK would follow the same pattern so a continuation of government support will be crucial.

Simon Thomas -CEO of the Hippodrome casino in London pointed out that as well as continued financial support, the hospitality industry needs flexibility on regulations such as allowing electronic gaming in casino and contactless payments rather than cash In order to survive this crisis the industry needs health and safety regulations that are sympathetic to the requirements of different sectors. For example, the mass gathering rule should be different for indoor and outdoor venues and for venues of different sizes. There cannot be just “one blunt capacity rule for all” In Spain they are planning for a percentage of the fire capacity and various different European countries have different guidelines, the UK asks for 4 square metre per person whereas in Switzerland it is 10 square metres. He thinks that consumer confidence is the key to a successful exit of lockdown and because there is such a low level of confidence and high level of inconvenience amongst consumers now, they will accept some inconvenience once the lockdown is lifted. He thinks that social distancing cannot be solely reductive ie preventing only contact but must change to encouraging safe contact (virtually) and safe travel.

Kris Gumbrell is CEO of Brewhouse pub chain with 22 pubs across the country (one in Chester) including London. He talks about keeping an intellectual connection to staff with social media, quizzes, training etc to ensure that they don’t have the impression that the hospitality industry is a “ship of doom” and they are enthusiastic about returning to work. He worries that his staff might be relying on furlough too much, difficult to order them back to work. He say that furlough need to be extended otherwise this hugely costly investment by the government will be squandered. He pointed out that there should be other ways to get money into the sector rather than debt. Suggested that regulations about Enterprise Investment Schemes and Seed financing should be relaxed. If all hospitality industry has to take on debt to survive it will create a “Zombie Sector”.

Government have a responsibility to get a clear message out that is is safe to travel once lockdown ends.

Group as a whole are keen for PRS and PPS to be on hold during the crisis and other regulated costs like BID (Business Improvement Districts) should freeze fees

Group as a whole thought that mid-September would be a likely date for reopening and that a Covid passport would help consumer confidence.

Furlough must be continued even if it is scaled down and made more flexible otherwise there are millions of workers who are unemployed but they just don’t know it yet.

Safety standards must be sensible and international, otherwise we are only as strong as the weakest link.