Our industry is on its knees. We always aim to offer you with real advice that will either bring you money or save you money, but in this edition I am afraid I have nothing to offer. No good news, no new tips, no new channels or no new high demand date clusters. This is very sad especially when our government can indeed fix this with a few amendments. I do not want to portray my personal opinion or get involved with politics, instead just highlight another angle to our situation. Be aware that we are not sharing ‘good’ nonsensical stories such as : ‘Marriott CEO says: each person deserves to be recognised’ , or ‘we had a great online meeting session’, or ‘ Hotel X has been sanitised’ or ‘GM at Hotel X posts inspiring video’, no the real world situation: UIF will no longer pay, do we layoff staff or send on unpaid leave. What happens to our staff?, all the time, effort, training, building, nurturing, when we cannot afford to pay them as there are no guests? There is no business. If you willing to have C19 positive guests you can have them for R2000-R4000 a week (at R429 ADR before fixed or variable costs), nevermind the cleaning needed afterwards and the new image you got being a provider for C19 positive souls. If you listed with any of the C19 essential sites you can forget getting C19 negative people wanting to self isolate at R500 a night. (source: Ubuntubeds). The only little bit of business is governmental travel for essential staff and you have no guaranteed they will settle in time if at all. OTA’s are dead quiet, few bookings come in and in CPT zero now to Nov. Insurance wont pay: if you have business interruption with specific cover they will repudiate your claim (except outsurance I believe?), Santam, Satib, BnBSure, Hollard all denied saying the lockdown caused the loss and not C19. Ourselves joined a class action and you can join too. If you need info just email me on jaco@hotel-revenue-manager.com There is no set date for local or international borders to reopen. If the government could at least decide and stick to a future date we can all work towards it, but we are in limbo, taking it day by day. We are open, cleaning, training, looking for guests but from my data and Siteminder’s below the average book is presently at 9% and global hotel index is at 40% of last year’s volume. None of the funds have paid out. Yes, the SMME relief and Tourism Relief havent paid (even if your are a high level BEE contributor) None of our clients that applied for funds in excess of 15 applications were awarded a single cent. Rife corruption of all grants received globally and current public purse under the premise of C19 seems to have been looted. The recent budget speech told us for every R10 we make, R8.50 is paid to service debt. The financial state of this country is long beyond recovery. The reopening of hotels locally and globally doesnt indicate uptick in demand, instead it indicates a desperate attempt to generate income. Many have gone under and many more will. I dont expect any improvement untill Nov/Dec and still a long way off. It is an even longer wait of you traditionally traded with a large proportion of international market. Source: https://www.homeforhotels.com/hotel-index/?utm_source=email_pr&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=sm-202006-email-global-homeforhotels&offer=none&productinterest=sm I know many or looking and doing different things such as long term rental via estate agents but the list of alternatives is very short. Our thoughts are with everyone Until next time, Jaco.
Hospitality Operations Allowed Level 3
Level 3 starting 1 June opens the industry up a little more despite many arguments and objections. The minister of tourism did an address on 30 May in which they outlined the following allowed: Restaurants for delivery or collection of food Restaurants with liquor licenses are also allowed to sell alcohol for collection or delivery. (thus, both on site and off-site licensees are allowed to sell) Professional services such as guides, operators, agents and officers, training is allowed Public and private game farms allowed to open for self-drive only Hiking allowed Accommodation activities are allowed without permission from the department. (except leisure) Read the full speech here https://www.gov.za/speeches/minister-mmamoloko-kubayi-ngubane-coronavirus-covid-19-alert-level-3-tourism-sector An estimated 8 million workers are returning on 1 June and seems everyone may resume except for leisure activities and personal care attendants. Yes, it is outrageous. Flights are resuming from the 4 main airports as well which bodes well for our industry. The ‘paperwork’ the department refers to is nothing special and easy to get hold of and complete. There are confirmations that one is able to book FlySafair and Mango but Kulula/BA Comair only available from Nov 2020 onward. Based on the current level change trajectory we see us reaching level 1 in Oct even if we apply 60 days to both levels 2 and 1. Yet the department insists on February ’21 return for international travel which again in not in keep with the rest of the globe that resumes ‘life’ from July onward. (we have initially been 2 months behind with C-19 which confirm our estimates below) We have come across many ‘clever’ ways to work around the senseless restrictions. For instance, Jolly Cool in Parkhurst hosts the Methodist Church and there for may have crowds of 50 or more (both funeral and religious) and supplies catering. Another one is corporate guests traveling for ‘weekend work’ Once thing for sure is that the authorities only investigates when an establishment is reported and not on an ad hoc basis. Keep in mind some operational considerations, your property has been unused for quite some time, it will take at least a week or so to get stock organized, staffing and hygiene training & C19 protocols set up. The sooner you start advertising that you are open the quicker the word will get around and it took most of us about 2-3 weeks to get the first guests to check in. If you want some ideas how to rekindle your market let me know and I will send some pointers. Remember OTA’s are not producing so focus your efforts on your guest history/past users and local area businesses and travel agents. From our experience these are the only travelers now. Whilst this is a short article the message is that we are slowly moving forward and you can do everything you used to, except having leisure guests. Remember to watch Carte Blanche’s episode on 31 May regarding business interruption repudiation claims and the ‘other fight’ we are all busy with. Take care Jaco
