CITY CENTRE VENUES SUFFERING ‘HUNDREDS’ OF CANCELLATIONS
BARS on Newcastle’s Diamond Strip have been hit with “hundreds” of cancellations this Christmas.
It should be the busiest time of the year for the hospitality industry, but a number of venues in the city centre are seeing bookings fall dramatically amid fears about the Covid Omicron variant.
In the week since Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that everyone should work from home, the bars on Collingwood Street say they have had “non-stop” cancellations.
Debrah Dhugga, chief operations officer at The Apartment Group, which owns the bars on the city’s party strip, said companies who were planning on having Christmas events for around 50 to 100 members of staff have been the ones to cancel.
“What is happening is that a lot of corporate companies – because of the emphasis that they are not allowed to work together and have to work from home – are postponing their Christmas events because they are not wanting to bring the all staff together,” she said. “People are looking at doing something come March time or waiting to see what happens.
“I think people are thinking that they are not going to bring employees together to socialise when they are not allowed to work together.”
She continued: “Over the last week, it’s been non-stop [cancellations]. “I think it’s coming from the corporate offices that are sending instructions out. Senior executives want to be seen to be looking after the welfare of employees.”
Small social groups have continued to enjoy the city’s nightlife during the festive season, but the impact of large bookings falling through has come as a “huge blow” to the Apartment Group. La Fee, Chacha-Buchi, Verano and Howlers only opened in the city in October as part of the North East leisure operator’s £3 million investment to revive the area. The company had been looking forward to their first Christmas but now faces a bleak festive trading season.
“It’s come as a huge blow to the whole of the hospitality industry.
“But, for my team and for the business, in general, we have got to stay positive moving forward. We have obviously been through all of this before and we are just hoping the precautions they are putting in place will slow things down so that we will have a positive start come the New Year.”
However, the Vaulkhard Group, which owns around 19 venues across the city and surrounding areas, including Barluga and Bealim House, has reported very few cancellations.
Director Ollie Vaulkhard believes the difference in the number of cancellations is a result of venues booking smaller groups rather than large-scale parties. He said: “If you have a function room that holds 300 people and it is booked all through December, [then] if you lose for or five bookings, you lose a lot of people. Whereas that’s not how we work. We have tables booked and areas booked. We don’t have any whole venue or full bar hires.