Latest KPMG data forecasts for our council area of Aberdeen City stands suggest we will have the highest drop in output due to the pandemics effect being compounded by the crash in oil price. The mood with many in the granite city is joyous around any hope of getting to operate soon, particularlt since countless venues of all shapes and sizes with rateable values above £51,000 are languishing and burning cash reserves which obviously leaves many feeling anxious.
Having personally given up with insurance, given up of the hope of grant extensions, not been willing to take on any debt, we have been well and truly counting the pennies. It’s a testing time for hospitality as we have borne the brunt of entering lockdown first and coming out of it last. In Aberdeen the Hilton Doubletree has already gone into administration.
During the close down many have been furloughed and productivity has dropped off massively for many. Struggles with working from home or for myself balancing two young children (1 & 2) with my wife still working in the NHS, no child care no family but still things to do.
Many have diversified to deliveries to survive. We have taken some key cultural events locally online for instance we ran a ‘Virtual May Day’ in conjunction with other bars and other local businesses and raised over £5,000 for nearby charities and we helped Grampian Pride stream online for the day in place of its parade.
We have tried to be innovative in-house and have been working tirelessly on assessing best practice and preparing our venue for a post-covid world. Our goals are to embrace our core values, shop local ourselves and embrace technology to help us diversify.
While we have done all we can to manage our own situation, this is all completely out of our hands. But that doesn’t mean that we cannot be informed by best practice from around the world or even in other areas of our own country.
However our city licensing board has not sat since the turn of the year and has no plans to do so fully or virtually until August 19th.
Locally the plans of pedestrianising streets to allow people to practice social distancing and outside opportunities for hospitality businesses are gathering pace. Within these plans we are pushing for the limitation of bureaucracy of licensing and planning to get something temporary and flexible so that hopefully it can be a saving grace for some. They are communicating with us and they are responding to feedback. The same cannot be said from our own Government, I am only one operator but when I have found best practice like looking at how WA in Australia have a training programme in place and how a restaurant group in Hong Kong, Black Sheep Restaurants, have the best “playbook” for dealing with the crisis I have seen, I have fed it into the system. I contacted my MP for it to then be sent onto a working group to be then met with radio silence around any questions. All of us right now are waiting on guidance from Government to comply with, and to balance furlough decisions on. Although we have a date of 15th July for opening, it will not be confirmed until the 9th July and we haven’t yet seen the guidance – it’s not out until the 18th June.
On a national level, in the last few days I have seen both the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh, and George Hotel, Inveraray, gaining their own booking confidence. Announcing to their social channels that they are available for booking from the 31st July and 1st of Augusts respectively. This I think is a great Idea in the absence of certainty, create your own. A plan I will be assessing and adopting for our hotel in the coming days.
In a report by Futurefoodservice.com published recently its expected that the hospitality and the food service sector will lose £23bn in the second half of 2020, achieving only 53% of 2019 levels & 22% of all hospitality outlets will not reopen this year. With futures like that predicted there is a need for far reaching support on both a UK and Scottish government level to protect jobs and livelihoods. There needs to be immediate reviews of VAT for the sector and a reduction imposed in line with other counties, and confidence given to the public with some kind of sectoral covid compliance scheme that builds trust and standards.
Throughout the whole period I have tried to remain positive, I will continue to do so but I feel immense sympathy for those throughout the sector facing the toughest of decisions and the weight that that bares on them. My thoughts are with them. WWW.SIBERIA-ABERDEEN.COM
