After advocating for ‘test to work’ for some time and amid declining public appetite for masking and other ‘traffic light rules’, the Restaurant Association welcomes the elimination of the traffic light system and associated requirements for staff to wear face coverings. This will help accelerate a return to normalcy not only for hospitality, but the country as a whole.
We’re pleased with the removal of the traffic light system and the dropping of mask wearing requirements for workers in the hospitality industry. Few people like covering their faces and it is a barrier to providing good personal service. With dwindling Covid infection numbers, public health advice indicating waning transmission rates along with the apparent low impact of Covid disease, it is the right move to make for the industry and the nation.
Hospitality businesses are seeing improving conditions as Covid restrictions continue easing; the RA’s monthly Hospitality Dashboard indicates that revenue is the same or higher for nearly 80% of members, with most trading at between 81 and 90% of typical customer levels.
Wellbeing is improving, too; where 73% of members indicating Covid restrictions and the resultant stresses were impacting their health in July, the number dropped to 58% in August.
Furthermore, optimism is growing; where in July just 20% of RA members expected business conditions to improve in the next 12 months, August saw that number increase to 33%.
The updated rules on household contact isolation and self-testing before returning to work is a major win for the industry which will go some way towards easing staffing pressures by getting otherwise healthy but furloughed employees back to work without unnecessary delays. We’ve advocated for this setting for some time. Preventing healthy people who want to work from coming makes no sense whatsoever, particularly when we’re absolutely struggling to find good staff to meet growing demand.
While the hospitality industry is still doing it tough, and staffing challenges remain a significant issue, recent events are reducing the worries confronting restaurant and hospitality businesses. Our members say trade is still difficult to predict, and a lot of that is the result of Covid measures. As these measures recede, we can expect brighter days.