Pain for many hospitality businesses: government energy cost support out of reach (but needed)
The shock over the increased energy costs is still being felt, because many people remain uncertain about what will happen after January 1, when the compensation scheme for citizens ends. And many hospitality businesses are in turmoil because the scheme the government has set up for the ‘energy-intensive SME’ sector imposes strict conditions. In fact, the Energy Cost Allowance scheme (TEK) is problematic for them.
For a very large proportion of the hospitality sector, the TEK scheme for energy-intensive SMEs is inaccessible. The entry barriers are high, and a large middle segment of the industry cannot overcome them.
Strict conditions for government support
The industry association Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN) recently conducted a survey showing that currently only 10% of hospitality businesses meet the criteria to receive government support for energy-intensive SMEs. In short, those criteria are: energy costs must amount to at least 12.5% of turnover, and minimum consumption must be 5,000 m3 of gas or 50,000 kWh of electricity. Many business owners do not meet these thresholds but are nevertheless struggling with explosively rising costs, as reported in trade magazine Misset Horeca.
Energy surcharge on the bill
A restaurant in Zoetermeer decided earlier this year to charge guests a separate energy surcharge. But not every hospitality business owner wants to do this, and many have depleted their reserves because of the coronavirus crisis.
Calling for different criteria
Chairman Robèr Willemsen says that KHN will urge the cabinet and the House of Representatives to revise the conditions. KHN is pushing for changes such as lowering the minimum consumption thresholds as a criterion and reducing the percentage of turnover spent on energy, allowing the most favourable subsidy scheme to take precedence, and applying the conditions of the TEK scheme per location instead of per group. In doing so, they hope the conditions will become more flexible and that more hospitality businesses will be able to make use of the allowance.
Source: Misset Horeca
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