The Government is not providing any guidance for the UK hospitality industry on when it can reopen.
With not knowing when it can reopen the UK hospitality industry can now only guess at a date.
Guessing will cost the UK hospitality industry through the loss of businesses and jobs, as proper preparation to reopen is unable to get underway.
Any plan of action needs a timetable to set an objective against and deploy tactics in order to achieve it. With no clear objective a plan is redundant.
Frustratingly, yesterday’s Downing Street briefing saw Dominic Raab once again provide no answer, in full or in part, to the question of when hospitality can reopen.
There has been a consistency to the no details line the Government has taken with hospitality, and no amount of questioning on the subject leads to anything other than repetitive vague sentiments designed to placate. Placate they do not.
Keeping eyes and ears close to political news, discussions and debates in recent weeks, has delivered no insight whatsoever to a date, so what can we draw from this?
The Government has been under constant attack since its main battle cry was changed on 10 May from – Stay at Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives – to – Stay Alert, Control The Virus, Save Lives.
What seemed like a clear and simple message that had been digested well and then moved to a glib, vague message open to unlimited interpretation.
The changes in lockdown measures since then have also come under increased scrutiny. Accusations that the Government is politically motivated ahead of its previous ‘we will be led by the science’ have grown in frequency and intensity.
The Government seemed to indicate at the time that it would move if put under enough pressure to do so, and could now be accused of precisely doing that.
Business Secretary Alok Sharma last week said: “We continue to follow our roadmap, which sets out our ambition to reopen these businesses (hospitality) on 4 July at the earliest.” The emphasis was on “the earliest.”
Chancellor Rishi Sunak and others had repeated similar lines.
As countless hospitality businesses and millions people eager to go back to work in hospitality watch, listen and wait for the Government to provide a date when they can do so, their ability to do so, diminishes.
A date for reopening hospitality is needed, and it is needed now.
Reopening: Measure twice cut once
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Hospitality reopening guessing game – 16 June 2020