GEORGE TOWN – The Covid-19 pandemic has caused the hospitality industry to be in a dire situation as hotels are already incurring losses, leaving them with little choice to either close their businesses or continue operating their properties in such challenging times.
K. Raj Kumar, the chairman of the Malaysian Association of Hotels’ Penang chapter, said that if the properties close, the owners still need to compensate the workers and pay maintenance fees to upkeep the buildings.
Some hotels now have barely four months’ worth of cash flow to go before they must take heavy handed measures to retrench their workers and close permanently.
But if they remain open, they will still incur losses due to the interstate travel ban and movement control order, which will not see freer movement of hotel guests, said Raj in an interview with The Vibes.
Raj said sales of food and beverages, takeaway, or deliveries are just token revenue for the hoteliers.
“It is not their bread and butter. It is a no-win status; if you open, you lose and if you do not, you also lose. That is our plight,” said Raj.
To reopen a property also needs time, as hotel owners need to source skilled workers, with many having moved on to work in the manufacturing and food businesses instead of hotels.
Therefore, the government needs to play a bigger role to rescue the hotels, said Raj.
“Other than wage subsidies, we are still waiting for a policy which can save us and help the industry weather Covid-19 better.”
Raj also pointed out that even if tourism rebounds soon in view of the mass vaccination campaign on the horizon, it will take months before they can return to their previous business volume.
“We also expect the salary scale to drop in line with the poor business outlook.”
Many travel trade members are dependent on foreign guests and tourists to come, but with the lingering effects from the global pandemic, it may take years before foreigners come to holiday here in large groups.
“But we need foreigners, as they are the ones which can offer us a higher yield for our services.”
He said it was unfair to expect local tourists to make up for the losses suffered from the non-presence of foreign tourists as they do not have the spending might foreigners do.
Veteran hotelier Khoo Boo Lim said that the situation would worsen if the authorities mismanaged the pandemic and if the vaccination process is inefficient.
“How we handle Covid-19 now is more important than how we handle our services and food quality,” he said.
Khoo said many people are now inclined to believe that the present wave of infections also has something to do with the alleged incompetence of the authorities, rather than the threat from the virus. – The Vibes, February 18, 2021
