From the beginning of the pandemic, we are witnessing how much it affected all businesses and industries. Not to lie, the situation doesn’t look good. A million-dollar question that interests everyone is when will be better and will it be ever again like before COVID-19.
Definitely, COVID-19 has the biggest impact on the restaurant and hospitality industry NY Kitchenall claims that it is close to collapse. Lockdowns forced people to stay home and not travel, so there was a lot of reservation canceling, which resulted in 7.5 million people who were leid off.
The total revenue losses are over 50% for the last year. That is the result of really low hotel occupancy – 65% of hotels remain below 50% occupancy. The hardest is for urban hotels, with 38%, which is below the national average. It all indicates to us that it will be hard to find one’s feet again.
Most businesses find out that the best solution is to be closed permanently. The number of 1,163,735 business closures on Yelp can confirm that fact. Also, 11% of restaurants have been forced to do the same thing.
And, how does the situation look today? Is it getting better? What do people think about dining out and traveling?
Well, numbers are not optimistic – 50% of people aren’t in the mood for travel, and only 14% of respondents have the will to go to restaurants, but when a vaccine becomes available. Restaurant owners share a similar opinion – 65% of them believe that will pass one year before they return to normal operating.
Minimization of human-to-human contact through technology is a solution, how more than 60% of hotel and restaurant customers believe. Future will show if that is true.
