Shocking: this is the hospitality industry’s loss of revenue during this strict lockdown
The stories of and about hospitality entrepreneurs who are at their wits’ end after almost two years of coronavirus misery are well known, and are still incredibly heartbreaking for all entrepreneurs. As their guests, all we can do is support them wherever possible and desperately hope that our favourite restaurant or café, or that wonderful hotel, will still be there afterwards. Because the stories can sometimes seem abstract, it is useful to see those miserable figures calculated realistically.
ABN AMRO did just that, and the figures do not lie. Do you know what this strict lockdown is costing the hospitality industry according to their calculations? It makes your heart sink…
Everything shut down
For every week of lockdown as it was before the most recent closure, the average loss of revenue was already 200 million euros. If the strict lockdown as it stands after 14 January is extended further, that loss of revenue will become even greater. To compare this with revenue in a quarter before coronavirus broke out: in the first quarter (also during a lockdown) of 2021, the hospitality industry generated more than 2 billion euros in revenue, which was more than half (!) less than in the first quarter of 2019, the last year so far without coronavirus.
Not so merry X-mas
The bank could see that among its customers, spending in restaurants during Christmas week fell by 55 percent in 2020 compared with the same week in 2019. In cafés, the decrease was as much as 72 percent.
Not crossing the border
Hotels are also suffering huge losses in revenue because tourists are staying away, as are museums and local cafés and restaurants. We ourselves went on holiday in our own country more often, but usually stayed in holiday homes or at campsites, where groceries—and therefore food—often still simply came from the supermarket.
Downward spiral
It naturally also works like one stain spreading over another. The leisure sector, which includes hospitality businesses and travel organisations, is struggling with widespread staff shortages in the hospitality industry and debts; suppliers whose intended customers are hospitality businesses are being hit hard, and there are also the higher costs caused by the exploding gas and electricity prices. This also includes the entire food industry, which uses both gas and electricity for heating, refrigeration and production.
It is difficult to remain optimistic
All of this is so sad. A small glimmer of hope may be found in looking back at how, as soon as restrictions were lifted, spending in the hospitality industry increased again very quickly. But whether that will come in time for millions of entrepreneurs is still very much the question…
Also read:
- Starting as a dishwasher in the hospitality industry; this would be the moment
- Geraldine ate at a Michelin-starred restaurant (and it was awful)
- Supermarket recruitment campaign makes the hospitality industry FURIOUS
Source: Misset Horeca (Marcel van Hoorn), ABN AMRO
