COVID-19 has hit the prospects of hotels and restaurants in the district hard.
According to estimates prepared by Kerala Hotel and Restaurant Association (KHRA), nearly 30% of hotels and restaurants in Ernakulam have downed shutters following the COVID-19 impact on their coffers.
“The number of hotels and restaurants that have been closed in Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kottayam and Pathanamthitta districts may be high when compared to Ernakulam. A hotel, which used to earn ₹1 lakh daily on an average in Ernakulam now gets only around ₹20,000. We are not even able to pay salary to our staff,” said G. Jayapal, general secretary, KHRA.
Hotels and restaurants have re-scheduled their timings to manage the crisis. “Many hotels that used to remain open from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. now function from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. There are also hotels that have stopped offering lunch owing to the high expenses,” Mr. Jayapal added.
A hotel owner at Aluva said he had introduced shift system for the staff. “Of the 20 staffers, I have asked 10 of them to come for the morning shift, while the rest join for the evening shift. Apart from COVID-19, bird flu scare too has contributed to the plummeting of sales,” he said.
With various State governments imposing stringent restrictions, inter-State migrant workers employed in hotels and restaurants here have requested their employers to permit them to leave Kerala immediately. “Despite suffering losses, I am keeping the hotel open to protect migrant workers, who have been preparing various chicken-based and other Arabic dishes for long. I will lose customers, if they do not return once the situation turns better,” said a hotel owner.
An employee from West Bengal said he had been receiving frequent calls from his family members asking him to return without delay. “I have been pacifying them, but the pressure is so hard that I cannot resist their requests further,” he said.
With inter-State workers leaving, hotel and restaurant owners are staring at another crisis. “Cleaning work will be affected as it is now done by workers from other States owing to shortage of Keralites for undertaking such work. A few workers are now cooperating with us to carry out cleaning in view of the current situation,” said Mr. Jayapal, adding that the association would co-operate with the Prime Minister’s call for ‘Janata curfew’ on Sunday by keeping hotels and restaurants closed.
A senior Labour Department official said the government had instructed the department to ensure that workers who wished to take leave in view of the health situation might be permitted to do so. It is not possible to intervene at this moment in cases of workers losing jobs as it is a fallout of the pandemic, he added.
