COVID-19 and Hospitality: Challenges, Strategies, and the Path Forward

This report examines the significant challenges the hospitality industry has faced due to the COVID-19 pandemic. It delves into various issues, including reopening difficulties, managing fixed and variable expenditures amidst low occupancy rates, the impact of lockdowns, stringent health and safety precautions, and the restrictions on foreign travel. The report highlights the reopening challenges faced by hotels, the financial strain caused by low sales and high expenses, and the need for discounted rates to attract customers. It also addresses the potential for future lockdowns, the critical importance of health and safety measures, and the severe impact of international travel restrictions on the industry. The conclusion emphasizes the need for strategic planning, cost management, and a focus on local and domestic tourism to navigate these challenges and ensure the survival and recovery of hospitality businesses. Desklib provides resources like this to aid students in their studies.

Business management

INTRODUCTION
Business and management is famous field of study, which teach everything that is related
to running of the business. Business is wide term which include management of various things
such as finance management, human resource management etc. In this report we will discuss
various challenges that is faced by hospitality industry due to COVID-19 (COVID-19
Management of hotels, 2021).
When COVID-19 hit the world almost every business faced hug loss and some of them
have to discontinue. Hospitality business faced the hardest hit apart from every sector, this virus
has spread across entire globe in no time. The government of every country declare this virus
deadly and suggest people to stay inside their home, the government imposes lock down to stop
the spread of COVID-19 (Jones and Comfort, 2020). This virus was spreading through the speed
of light, almost whole world got affect within a year. People were dying every second as there
was no solid medicine to stop the virus, this was something, as world haven't witness any of such
epidemic in past 100 year. When there was Spanish flu influenza, at that time the world was not
prepared and faced huge loss of lives. As same thing happened when COVID-19 hit the world,
the only thing this world have is advance medical science. Getting back to the topic, the
hospitality industry have to bear huge losses till now even after the every thing is getting better.
While the flow of international tourism still remain subdued, local and domestic tourism started
growing. Increase in sales is still big dream for many hoteliers, because there is still no effective
flow of people (Kotler, et.al, 2018.). There are many challenges faced by travel and
hospitality industry such as:
 Reopening challenges
 Fixed and variable expenditure
 Low occupancy
 Lock down
 Health and safety
 Foreign restriction
Re-opening challenges, after observing such a huge impact, hospitality industry intend to
reopen, hotel manager takes the initiative to open desk of hotel reception in the hope of
succeeding again (Hassanien and Dale, 2019). Re-opening have still many risks associated with

it for example it the government again imposes the lock down, all the strategies will be failed.
Fixed and variable expenditure, after the impact, the sales is low and the expenses are high in
hospitality industry (Slattery, 2002). Government have provided various guidelines for the safety
of customer such as hotels have to provide hygienic and sanitizes room, proper testing should be
done at the reception, etc. maintaining hotel and rooms is very costly to hotel after the bills and
payrolls to staff and other various expenditure.
Low occupancy, low occupancy rates impact the growth of the industry. For the purpose of
reopening of the industry, manager have to keep the rates very low. Low or discounted rates
attract various customer base, this policy is adopted by almost every hotelier (Yeh, 2021). Low
rates are on of the reason why many hotels and restaurants have to discontinue because there is
inflation of price in almost every product and hotel can not afford such low price with high
market rates.
Lock down, due to rapid increase in COVID cases lock down might happen again, this will
almost going to shut down small hotels. Lock down is imposes by the government to keep people
safe in their homes, many hotels decide to shut down or sell it out. Lock down might be good for
people but it is bad for business.
Health and safety precaution, health is the most important factor, people are very concerned
with their health after the COVID. Many businesses fail to keep the health and safety precaution
which allow government to impose lock down again, people themselves are not following any
safety precaution such as maintaining proper social distance, wearing masks, sanitizing hand
properly etc.
Foreign restriction, Hospitality industry welcome tourist from all around the globe, due to
travel restriction hotel sector of hospitality industry have bear huge losses. Almost every country
have put travel to stop the spread of virus, this impacted the hospitality industry badly and
affected the growth economy of the country.
CONCLUSION
In this report we have discussed how COVID-19 impact the hospitality industry, this
report have shown the details of impact and challenges faced by the industry. Hospitality
businesses have faced various challenges such as re-opening challenges which tell us about how
it is difficult for business to restart, reopening have various problem such as low inventory sales
to overcome such problems related to reopening, hotel manager have decided to plan new

strategies such as providing rooms completely hygienic and serving food with proper safety.
Another challenge which is expenses, hotel manager have to maintain cost and income level
which was challenging after the COVID impact, it is suggested that manager should make new
plans such as maintain expenses of electricity, payroll to staff, etc. these plans should include
proper budget distribution. Challenge of low occupancy is another crucial challenges that impact
the growth of the industry after lock down, its is suggested for hotelier to keep rates according to
flow of customer in the market, and they should keep the rates low because people are not ready
to give previous years rates in this particular time. Low rates will drive high inventory and
occupation sales. Travel ban have impacted hospitality badly because no foreign traveller was
allowed to enter the country, its is recommended that hotel manager should focus more on local
and domestic tourist rather than waiting for foreign tourist because local tourist is the only hope
that can save a hotel from discontinuing, they should welcome local tourist and must provide
them rates according to the market condition.

REFERENCES
Books and journals
Hassanien, A. and Dale, C., 2019. Hospitality business development. Routledge.
Jones, P. and Comfort, D., 2020. The COVID-19 crisis and sustainability in the hospitality
industry. International journal of contemporary hospitality management.
Kotler, et.al, 2018. Marketing for hospitality and tourism. Pearson Education.
Slattery, P., 2002. Finding the hospitality industry. Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport and
Tourism Education. 1(1) pp.19-28.
Yeh, S.S., 2021. Tourism recovery strategy against COVID-19 pandemic. Tourism Recreation
Research. 46(2) pp.188-194.
Online
COVID-19 Management of hotels, 2021. [Online]. Available Through;
<https://www.hospitalitynet.org/news/4104448.html>
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