Covid 19 Omicron outbreak: Hospitality in crisis due to lack of domestic travel

By RNZ

Hospitality New Zealand says domestic travel is at a standstill as forward bookings point to accommodation occupancy rates as low as 20 per cent for the next three months.

The industry organisation said Auckland locations were operating on an average occupancy of less than 20 per cent in January, when MIQ accommodation was excluded, and Wellington averaged less than 30 per cent.

"Every cancelled event causes hundreds of cancelled bookings for rooms, dinners and drinks," Hospitality NZ chief executive Julie White said.

"The Government has over-cooked the fear and the health rules. People are fearful to go to their local shops, let alone go to another city. Whatever we try to do, no bookings means no business."

She said the accommodation sector needed a reinstatement of the wage subsidy and resurgence payments.

Cordis Auckland managing director Franz Mascarenhas said the hotel was making losses in the millions.

"We have held on to our workforce with the hope things might improve, but the elongated time period is getting us to a position when some tough decisions will have to be made," he said.

"What we want from the Government is an indicator of the criteria being used to move us back to orange [settings] and a targeted time frame by when isolation requirements will be removed, so that the industry can start to trade again. And in the interim, some financial support to get us through."

Top 10 Holiday Parks group chief executive David Ovendale said bookings after the traditional Christmas holiday period "fell off a cliff".

"There is no long summer tail this year," he said.

"If it takes six more months to work through this next phase of the pandemic in New Zealand, the effect on holiday parks and the wider accommodation sector will be terminal for some, perhaps for many. We've got to learn to live with this virus," Ovendale said.

Wellington-based Bolton Hotel operator Hannah Chinnery said trading conditions were "terrible".

"This is the worst we have experienced in 18 years," she said.

"With no Government financial support, we are burning cash and making unsustainable losses."

The owner of Riverstone Motel in Rangiora, Mike Dougan, said the industry needed some financial support now.

"The phone has almost stopped ringing. If it does, it's someone cancelling," he said.