There has been a pandemic that is taking a toll on every industry in the economy of the world and no one can actually dispute that. Unlike most natural disasters the corona virus is not just infect certain countries or continents but the whole world. The one thig the entire world has in common are tourist.
Everyone has travelling on their bucket list. May it be a group of friends going on their annual holiday, a married couple on their honeymoon or just a family wanting to spend some time together, everyone want to go somewhere where they can relax and not worry about the stress bac home.
We now come to the part of where one would stay once they leave the country, this is where hotels come into play. Hotels provide you with certain wanted luxuries when you are on holiday and do their best to keep you happy and comfortable.
Sadly hotels are taking a hit right now with the pandemic as traveling has been curbed to not leaving your city so that the virus can be contaminated. In the meantime what have the hotels been doing as they have no guests.
Well the five star hotels in London are giving us a look at how they survived the lockdown. To start with the St. Pancras Renaissance hotel in King’s Cross London invited its staff to use the hotel as their home-away-from-home, utilizing the stunning Queen Victoria suite as a kitchen for daily cooking and the gym to keep active. Any spare food or stock which was due to expire before reopening was offered to staff or donated to local charity, C4WS Homeless Project. The management saw that the staff needed cheering up as the hotel remained shut. This would also help the hotel to stay maintained and didn’t fall into disrepair after 150 years of grandeur.
We then come to Brown’s Hotel in Mayfair. Here again the skeleton staff of 16 people were allowed to stay at the hotel on their rotation and use the facilities. The hotel donated all of its perishable food to two London hospital NHS teams. This isn’t all the Managing director of the hotel Stuart Johnson stated that “Once the vaccine programme was rolled out, a large number of the team volunteered at vaccine centres across the city We have also partnered with Nights on Us [a collaborative initiative that offers ICU Nurses two-night hotel stays] to thank key workers for their hard work over the pandemic.”
The Rosewood London in Holborn although completely shut during the first lockdown managed to open their doors from the 1st of September 2020. The hotel took a massive hit but the Managing director Michael Bonsor claimed that it gave them an opportunity to help the community. The Rosewood London also provided NHS workers with free meals and donations, while the group as a whole launched a global campaign to offer an ‘Hour of Kindness’ to local communities.
This Corinthia in London has also been coping well during and after lockdown. The staff at London’s Corinthia kept themselves busy by replanting window boxes and escorting the resident hawk to the roof to scare off pigeons. The manager Jochem Meijerink said that “Our produce orders increased, and we increased our fine wine and champagne orders. But we are not yet at pre-pandemic levels in terms of staffing. As with all luxury hotels, we rely on international travelers as well as corporate groups and events, all of which contribute to our occupancy levels.”
