When Pleasure Turns To Pain For Hospitality Owners, Staff & Customers

When Pleasure Turns To Pain For Hospitality Owners, Staff & Customers

Eating and drinking is “One of Life’s Pleasures” and it’s always much better when you’re eating and drinking with family and friends in one of your favourite cafés, bars or restaurants. However, due to the recent resurgent increase in Covid-19 numbers there are many factors disrupting so many aspects of our lives, especially during the first few weeks of summer when all we want to do is catch-up with family and friends and visit our local café, new restaurants and to make the most of the what we all though was going to be the post-lockdown era.

The pain of not being able to secure a reservation at a restaurant or wine bar for your partner’s birthday due to restricted numbers or be limited to your local gastro-pub limited weekend-only trading hours, or worse still to see local neighbourhood family pizza restaurant close their doors for good (+39 Pizzeria, Hawksburn Village and Quaff Restaurant, Toorak Village).

We’re all aware of the many factors that are creating these painful and stressful situations for both our hospitality business owners, their staff and their valued customers. This is well documented:

'More painful than lockdown': Australia's hospitality industry left reeling from latest COVID wave”

Good Food, The Age:DANI VALENT, January 4, 2022

What we all want is a return to some degree of “Normality”, whatever this may be. We’ve moved well and truly beyond what we though was going to be the new normal as the lockdowns ended for good (or at least we are lead to be believe so). We all know so well, the hospitality industry has been particularly hard-hit as a result of the on-going pandemic (not forgetting the severe impact on the airlines). The future may require a two-stage process, one that involves modifying the current food and beverage offers (reduced menus and product lines) including food stores, greengrocers and providers of fresh produce; and a need to re-calibrate other operational considerations on so many levels – trading days, trading hours and some reduction or further modification on the service style aspects.

New rules of engagement for the future enjoyment of food and service. The reality is; in the future world of hospitality there are new rules around the business of food as an Owner; everyone is going to need to re-calibrate their expectations regarding everything from the cost of a cup of coffee to a fine dining experience. If the pandemic and its ongoing aftermath has taught us anything, it’s that we can no longer operate food and hospitality business the way that they have previously been run, prices will increase, cost of operating will increase with hygiene and technology controls, raw food cost increases and with staff shortages - employees can command a higher rate and with more flexible and attractive working conditions.

Australia’s hospitality industry over-reliance on casual and temporary/permanent visa-based workers has highlighted the immediate need for a National Tourism & Hospitality Strategy Report that not only addresses the specific State by State tourism and hospitality needs of this crucial economic sector but ensures a home-grown pipeline of future generations of qualified hospitality professionals.

Hospitality, regardless of what ever size or shape it takes; has to varying degrees lost its appeal as an employer for many people, both full time and part. It’s now time to reset the compass to guide the roadmap for the industry for the foreseeable future. When international tourists eventually return, they will expect the historical Australian hospitality welcome we are famous for with great restaurants, cafes, bars, friendly staff and amazing venues from the coast to the outback.

The only way to secure and live-up to our promise of “Outstanding Hospitality” is to ensure that both the Federal and State Governments work closely with industry at all levels to developing a road map that address the ever-increasing ‘cracks’ in our industry. Without trained, valued and respected hospitality people at all levels, we will have no industry.

On a more positive note, we see some great industry examples of this realisation in action with business small and large taking pro-active measures to secure their business by pro-actively reducing costs and reinventing aspects of their business in order to survive and thrive in the short term.

Help your customers to be better too. Togetherness is key in this fight – meaning less finger pointing and more co-creation. Hospitality businesses that plan and implement a pro-active approach to communication, conditions of entry and a personalised approach to any potentially ‘friction’ points is the best way forward. It is crucial that as hospitality professionals we foster a sense of collaboration with our valued consumers to tackle key issues during this prolonged pandemic when people are nervous, anxious and uncertain on how to interact in hospitality spaces they once felt in complete control.

Professional hospitality people are people-people. Based upon my 45 years working in hospitality, I believe, hospitality people read the situation, they think about how best to assess the incoming-customer and their immediate needs to relax and inform them as required and to remember that basic-human-respect. In most cases, this approach will be met with respect from customers. During this challenging time (for many customer-facing-staff across many industry sectors) it is all about the need for us all to ride out this current omicron phase of the pandemic and hope that the world will recover soon and ALL mankind can return to our safe and enjoyable communities.

Finally. Future Food’s key message to all operators – implementing a customer-centric approach aligned with an updated business plan (reduced trading hours, reduced labour costs, reduced menus, effective communications, customer engagement, empathy, etc) - will prove to be the only way forward and be beneficial for the long term success of your food and beverage businesses. And at the same time, you will be providing customers with the social connection and nourishment to help us all get through this challenging time.

Image credits

Cover:
www.broadsheet.com.au/adelaide/food-and-drink/article/the-birth-four-day-work-week-australian-kitchens

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