SCOTTISH tourism leaders have been warning for weeks that the closure of hotels, pubs, and visitor attractions to halt the spread of coronavirus would be devastating for the industry. Events of recent days have shown this has been no empty rhetoric.
The Crieff Hydro group was not the first major employer in the industry to say it will be forced to make redundancies as a result of Covid-19 when it revealed yesterday that it had begun a consultation process which could see it cut as many as 241 roles across its seven hotels.
It was the fact that such a long-established and prosperous name in the business – flagship hotel Crieff Hydro has been trading for 150 years – had been forced into such drastic action that really drove home the message that this is a crisis like no other Scottish tourism has faced.
READ MORE: Crieff Hydro rocked by redundancies as virus crisis rips through Scottish tourism industry
Creff Hydro is a business with a strong reputation for investing in its people and its properties and attractions to safeguard its survival for future generations. Now it is looking at slashing one quarter of its workforce.
The warning signs have been flashing for weeks, though. Hoteliers the length and breadth of Scotland have telling anyone who cared to listen that mass redundancies across the industry was the likely outcome as soon as the support provided by the UK Government’s furlough scheme began to taper off.
Indeed, it is no surprise that the redundancy announcements have begun to step up in recent days, as companies look to complete the mandatory consultation processes with workers before they are forced to begin making contributions to wage costs again in August.
In that regard, it was probably no coincidence that it emerged last week that staff were at risk of redundancy at the Kimpton Blythswood Square and the Grand Central in Glasgow as luxury operator InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) moved to streamline operations.
READ MORE: Scott Wright: Time running out to save summer for Scotland's crisis-hit tourism sector
The furlough scheme has undoubtedly been crucial in allowing hotels to keep staff on the payroll while the doors have been closed during lockdown. But staff costs are not the only overhead businesses face. In the case of tourism, hotel owners will have loans connected to their properties to service, and the cost of maintaining and securing buildings while being unable to trade. Some staff will have had to be retained, too.
These bills have had to be met month after month throughout the lockdown.
With no income coming in, and still no firm date for a full reopening, the simple arithmetic points to cuts being necessary for any business to have a fighting chance of survival.
Hotelier Malcolm Duck summed up the picture in stark terms on social media last night. Responding to the news of cuts at Crieff Hydro, the owner of Duck’s Inn at Aberlady tweeted: “It’s going to be horrible.”
Without urgent intervention from government, the sad fact is Mr Duck is absolutely right.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article