There are a lot of hotels just barely making it out of this pandemic with their staff retained and their doors open. Most in the tourist industry had shut their doors long time ago because it was a survival of the fittest kind of situation. Since one needs guest and tourist to stay open and travelling, holidaying or even leaving your house was not an option the tourism industry crashed.
There were of course hotels taking a different approach to this and still keeping open even with no guests staying. General Managers were making these calls based on a gut feeling and they were working out. One of them was the general manager of M Gallery Harbor Rocks Hotel, Sylvia Kypriotis, has a stylish boutique heritage-listed property only a stone’s throw from glittering Sydney harbor – with all 59 rooms empty, and no prospect of filling them, save for two bookings coming up based on “essential travel” purposes.
Ms. Kypriotis quoted that “The reasons you can stay for essential travel are extremely slim, so we’re not surprised to only have two bookings in the diary and we’re all geared up for COVID-safe stays. Sydney’s CBD is really deserted now, but thousands of residents live around the Rocks, and they’re so grateful we stay open. That’s the message we’re trying to convey: ‘We’re here for you’. It also helps our staff stay busy as they cook, pack and deliver food.”
Like most of Sydney’s similarly empty hotels, Ms. Kypriotis is determined to stay open and rotate staff so as many as possible get a shift; keeping the hotel’s kitchens – plus its street-entry Creperie Suzette – open for takeaway food and coffees. The M Gallery brand is part of Accor Hotels, Australia’s largest chain. Sydney-based Australasia Accor CEO, Simon McGrath, is struggling to keep all 100 of his hotels across Sydney and NSW open, despite watching occupancy rates plunge from about 60 per cent to less than 20 per cent within days.
