The global economy is under enormous strain as it deals with the fallout from the COVID 19 virus. All industries and all sectors are affected, but none more so than hospitality.
By its very nature, the hospitality business is entirely dependent on the movement of people and a fall-off in demand of this magnitude has never been experienced before. Hotels, restaurants, airlines, resorts, bars, and all other businesses related to travel and tourism have come to a grinding halt.
About 20 years ago, many mature societies observed a shift in behavior. This shift was families and individuals spending more on travel and experiences than they spent on household goods.
What is positive about this crisis is that for the first time travel and tourism has been named specifically as an industry that is vital in any functioning economy and in fact many economies derive a considerable amount, if not the majority of their GDP from travel and tourism-related activities.
Many governments recognize this and have put extraordinary measures in place to try and protect these businesses. There is a recognition that, certainly in the short term, these businesses need to be mothballed and supported as opposed to being closed down. This makes very good business sense as the expense and time spent ramping these businesses back up to efficient levels is a lot more expensive. This, of course, is predicated on the exceptional circumstances lasting around three months as opposed to 6 months or longer.
It will come as no surprise, of course, to see that some governments are more supportive than others. This is for a variety of reasons, not least of which some countries are unable to afford the levels of support required.
Hotel and Hospitality Sector Assistance Report
We decided to start collating these industry support measurements on a country by country basis so that we can create a best practice benchmark that shows the different approaches. Hopefully, once this crisis passes we will be able to look at the various measures adopted and figure out which was the most effective and why. It would be wonderful if this was the last such crisis in our lifetimes, but it seems more likely that it won’t be. As long as we learn as much as we can about how to keep entire economies and industries afloat, what works and what doesn’t work, we will be in much better shape to deal with the next one.
Our goal is to update this report on a weekly basis as we obtain more information, please circulate and look out for further editions.
We have made a comparative compilation of benefits extended by several nations for the hotel sector, and for tourism. The compilation will be updated for information from other countries as sector-specific information becomes available
