Back in business, but hospitality, dine-out sectors staring at long turnaround period

Jamshedpur: Steel City entrepreneurs, hotel and eatery owners, who restarted their operations after 160 days of lockdown on Tuesday, said they are facing multiple challenges in reviving their businesses.
Expecting the challenges to continue for a few more weeks, the business community members said the immediate issue before them is the shortage of manpower as many of their employees have left during the lockdown period.
“The fear of Covid is such that our staff members who have gone back home are unwilling to return without persuasion, motivation and assurances on their salaries, health check-ups and quarantine facilities. It has impacted our costs,” said Mithlesh Jha, director of Jharkhand Tourism Development Corporation (JTDC) run Kannelite Sakchi Vihar hotel.
Anurag Chaurasia, general manager of Madhuban, a motel located in the Adityapur ancillary town, said 80% of his staff members have gone back home during the lockdown.
“After analyzing the business for the next 30 days, we will decide whether to call our staff members back or wait for some more time. With SMEs resuming operations, eating out has picked up page, but opening on a large scale would be risky at the moment.”
Another hotelier and proprietor of Yashwee International, Anil Khemka, said the other issue which they are facing is the lack of customers, whose confidence to venture out even for business purposes during the pandemic is very low.
Stating that till the business activity at heavy and small industries gets back to normal in the industrial town, he said running the hotel industry will be a challenge.
“We are hoping for wider reopening of railways and aviation sectors so that meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions resume. It would bring in professionals and delegates from various companies and will ultimately translate into a higher number of hotel bookings.”
To woo customers, the hotel industry is also offering a host of discounts, said Randeep Bhatia, secretary of the Jamshedpur Hotels and Restaurants Association (JHRA).
Bhatia, who also owns a restaurant, said, “We are optimistic about the revival of the business but not very sure that the hotel and restaurant bookings will see a rise immediately as the customers' mindset has changed drastically during the pandemic.”
A senior staff member at the food and beverages wing of BS Palace said the initial days of reopening will be spent in training the staff on proper compliance of the safety protocols framed by the government.
In Bokaro, majority of the hotels did not open citing lack of clear-cut guidelines from the district administration and shortage of staff.
Owners of a few prominent hotels such as Hans Regency and West Inn said they will wait for a few days more to decide on reopening. “We have not opened our restaurant and hotel today. We are streamlining the process currently,” said Dipak Gupta, owner of Hans Regency. West Inn owner Amit Johar said, “Staff crunch is a problem faced by many hotels these days. With Covid cases rising in Bokaro, many are also unwilling to resume their duty.”