No butter to serve hotel guests
Sri Lanka has no butter and hotels are depending on margarine to serve their guests. Hotel menus are trimmed and as cancellations rise, bookings too have slowed and the tourism industry fears this could adversely impact next winter.
It’s not going to affect the summer, but the fear is that ‘we’ might get affected for the next winter, Hotels Association President M. Shanthikumar said. With about 25-50 per cent cancellations overall bookings made online have come down by 30-40 per cent.
“At the moment every stakeholder is fighting their own battle,” he explained pointing out that the industry has not faced such difficulty for the past 40-50 years pointing out that they have no electricity for about 10 hours and even the gen
erators cannot be operated due to the lack of diesel. And most restaurants are facing problems due to the shortage of gas as well although hotels don’t face this situation since they operate with
industrial gas sent through the pipelines.
Currently there is no butter in the country and hotels are using margarine; in addition imported lamb, salmon and wines and spirits are also not available so menus are trimmed, he said.
Most hotels inform their guests of the alternate items available and then there are instances when tourists have to be turned down when they request for items not available.
In fact, he noted that today even the staff is finding it difficult to come to work and their service charge is getting eroded.
The situation is aggravating with the possibilities of staff cuts if the current crisis continues. “In time to come if this continues a lot of people will lose their jobs and mostly the casuals, trainees then the contract staff and likewise and it will go back to the pandemic days,” Mr. Shanthikumar explained.
After the pandemic hotels experienced a shortage of staff as most employees had been laid off and had left for overseas jobs. “Hotels started getting people and training and now we will fall to the same levels.”
Smaller hotels might close as the moratorium period on repayment of loans ends in June and the industry will have nowhere to turn to, he noted.
In this respect, the industry is worried how they can pay off their loans as SMEs find it increasingly difficult because tourists have slowed down s i n c e M a r c h , M r. Shanthikumar said.
Other stakeholders in the industry point out that tourists will continue to trickle into the country but new inquiries have reduced by about 50 per cent especially for the short term. And in addition to that there are cancellations.
Furthermore airlines operating into the country are currently considering reducing the number of flights per week as well.