Good Value = Popular = Crowding = Exuberant Conversation = Infected Spittle-Spatter blown away in a patio wind, but sucked into deadly circulation when trapped indoors. The future of the hospitality industry once lived, and now dies, in the loving embrace of conviviality.
Sure, totally revamped building circulation is proposed as a possible answer. Alas, such a theoretical victory is well beyond the financial reach of most, if not entirely all, of the world’s eateries and drinkeries (not to mention their landlords).
Meantime restaurants and pubs, even those with great air circulation, are being lumped together and ordered to lock down, closing their rooms full of empty tables. At best they are permitted to limp along on takeout.
Hospitality businesses cannot survive without often rather poorly paid employees. But few businesses are capable of retaining them in the absence of paying customers. Worldwide, the result is a growing reality of employee layoffs and dismissals.1
Beyond the dry, numeric blow-by-blow of a mortally wounded industry, what exactly is happening to these hospitality industry employees?
Exploring a series of personal experiences adds up to at least a glimmer of understanding why many regions, no matter how badly battered by rising numbers of COVID-19 victims, are so reluctant to enact or extend or repeat lockdowns. Read more in The Guardian: ‘I’m seeing an industry disappear’: how lockdown is leaving hospitality workers homeless
Footnotes
- The impact of layoffs and dismissals began very early in COVID-19 for those in the hospitality industry: Government Will Protect Your Homes When . . . What? Evicted Already?
