Yesterday’s government briefing by Business Secretary Alok Sharma was not what any of us in hospitality wanted to hear. Reopening hospitality at “the earliest” was emphasised in all too plain language.
We wrote yesterday immediately after the briefing on some of the questions and answers that made us think hospitality had been side-lined, further thought isn’t making our assessment of the briefing any brighter.
Most retail experiences take place in shops where social distancing is equally as challenging as a restaurant or pub. Browsing rails of clothing no closer than 2m from the next shopper would seem as much a challenge as enjoying a drink at the same distance.
The experience timescale of passing another shopper in the aisles may be shorter than engaging with someone over a drink, but in many retail outlets the volume of the engagement incidence would be far more frequent than in a pub for example. More brief encounters Vs fewer longer ones.
Semantics perhaps, but the comparison, and risk factors would not seem too far apart. The definite opening of non-essential retail on the 15th June and “the earliest” opening of hospitality on the 4th July are very far apart.
So, the question that has to follow is why, and where is the justification in the decisions that create policy categories like these that relegate hospitality.
The worry is that it doesn’t look like any sense can be made of the situation, so trying to make sense of it is futile.
We can all speculate on the reasons, the danger as we do so is the signals sent by government yesterday, lead to little optimism.
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Government briefing relegates hospitality – Government briefing relegates hospitality