This has little effect on bookings for the time being. “50 percent occupancy will still work out on average,” said the spokesman for the Austrian Hotel Association (ÖHV), Martin Stanits, on Monday. The changes announced by the government at the weekend “nothing will be lost”.
“We will have to live with the virus”
Overall, the development of the pandemic is going in the right direction. “We are happy and it’s good that the intensive care units in the hospitals have low occupancy rates despite Omikron,” emphasized the industry spokesman. The lower the occupancy rate in the hospitals, the higher it can be in the hotel industry. “We really hope it stays that way.” Corona will accompany us for years to come. “We will have to live with the virus, we will not be able to vaccinate everyone and you cannot always exclude people who have only been tested,” said Stanits. This applies to both guests and employees.
tightening and facilitation
The corona rules announced by the federal government at the weekend will be tightened on the one hand and made easier on the other: From February 1st you will lose your vaccinated status (for 2G) if the second vaccination was more than six months ago (instead of nine months previously). From February 5th, guests in the hotel and catering industry no longer have to be sent to their room or home at 10 p.m. due to the officially ordered, early curfew, and from February 19th you can also return to hotels with a valid corona test (PCR or antigen). , restaurants and cafes. Because there, 3G (vaccinated, recovered or tested) applies again instead of 2G (vaccinated or recovered). For shopping outside of everyday needs (groceries, pharmacies, tobacconists), 3G instead of 2G applies a week in advance, from February 12th.
Resentment about shortened vaccination certificates
The shortening of vaccination certificates from around nine months (270 days) to six months (180 days) as of tomorrow, Tuesday, which also invalidates ski passes for those who are not sufficiently vaccinated, is an Austrian curiosity that is causing a lot of resentment in the industry. Because in the rest of the EU, the 270 days still apply. So you can have a valid Green Passport outside of Austria that is not valid in this country. You are allowed to enter the country, but you cannot stay in a hotel or go to a restaurant or coffee house. From mid-February, 3G will apply there again instead of 2G, so you can then at least test yourself free for a holiday in the Alpine republic (daily). But between February 1st and February 19th you are completely up in the air. “That’s such nonsense, so far away from practice,” criticized Stanits.
City tourism remains the problem child
For February, however, the hoteliers’ association does not currently expect the booking status to go down, rather that something will increase. “On average we will be able to maintain 50 percent, sometimes exceed it – except for the cities.” Things are still going badly there. When it comes to reservations in the holiday hotel industry, there are “some wobbly candidates and there is certainly a chance that something will be added – that will balance out,” the ÖHV spokesman expects.
“There will also be regions where bookings are approaching 70 percent occupancy and the sub-threshold of 40 to 50 percent will come to an end.” In some cases, things are moving at a much higher level than feared. “That’s something, for a crisis – and where it is also possible to keep the employees,” said the industry representative.
“Maximum 80 percent occupancy”
“It’s not that threatening, but there are also self-imposed limitations,” admitted Stanits. In any case, there will not be full utilization even in the weeks with the generally highest sales (February to mid-March) of the 2021/22 winter season: “We are going to a maximum of 80 percent utilization, nobody is going to 100 percent,” he emphasized. It is more problematic for some in the holiday hotel industry, which has a high proportion of foreigners from EU third countries – such as Russia and now also Great Britain.
Communicating the new Corona rules to the guests in the middle of the semester break business will be complicated. “Once again, those who suffer from this botch are the entrepreneurs,” criticized the Salzburg hotelier and ex-NEOS politician Sepp Schellhorn on Monday in the Ö1 “Morgenjournal” of ORF radio.
“See that we can make ends meet”
“Now would actually be the month with the highest turnover in winter,” explained the hotelier and restaurateur. Almost 50 percent of winter sales are made in the four weeks in February and the two weeks in March, “if things were going normally,” says Schellhorn. “Many are dependent on it, we have to see that we can make ends meet.” But that doesn’t mean “that we ignore the guidelines, we have to enforce them as best we can”.
The entrepreneur does not like the fact that the switch from 3G to 2G was announced in mid-February according to government specifications. “No one knows. So I as an entrepreneur, as Hotelier, would have been in favor of driving through the winter for 2G because I also got my employees to do it.” In his opinion, guests would feel safer if only enough vaccinated and recovered people had access to the hotels, restaurants and cafes.
Source: Nachrichten
