BUSINESSES IN THE sectors worst hit by the Covid-19 pandemic are reflecting on the worst year many of them have ever endured, but are also looking ahead to brighter days in 2021.
In the hospitality and tourism sectors, in particular, bookings and demand faced “wipeout” in the sudden, sharp shock of the arrival of the coronavirus in March.
But, with better treatments, testing at airports and, most importantly, effective vaccines on the way, there’s a sense of optimism that things can turn around again in the coming 12 months.
‘A complete wipeout’
For businesses the length and breadth of the country, 2020 has been among the hardest years in living memory.
The financial crash of a decade ago plunged many into turmoil, but this is the first year where viable businesses were forced to shut their doors and had no control over the matter.
Revenue plummeted as they had to close up shop and many have had to lay off staff.
Rob Rankin is the managing director of Vagabond Tours.
For almost 20 years, his company has been offering tours around the country for visitors here.
“We started out in 2002 and we’ve been going since then,” Rankin told TheJournal.ie. “We’ve been doing all sorts of tours to offer a good quality, intimate way of seeing Ireland.
We’d never cancelled a tour until March this year. Then, we had to make the call. It became clear over the year that none of the tours booked would be possible. It’s been a complete wipeout. We haven’t done a single tour.
The catastrophic year in 2020 follows a number of good years for Irish tourism.
Rankin said: “Like everyone else, we did have a feeling that it was a bit like the property boom. Tourism had had a boom, but we were wondering what was around the corner. No one expected this.”
He described a meeting of industry officials with representatives from the Department of Health in the early stages of the pandemic.
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“One of them told us how we had to flatten the curve,” he said. “And we asked when things might come back. She said ‘September’ and my face went white. Little did we know. This year is now a complete write-off.”
The year has been a non-starter for fledgling companies as much as established companies in the tourism sector.
Edel O’Regan started Eriu Tours in November 2019 with the hope she could start running her first tours in March 2020.
By the end of January, she’d had seven confirmed bookings – mostly from the US.
She managed to complete one of those tours at the start of March before everything changed.
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“There’s been a couple of moments this year when I’ve thought ‘what have I done?’,” O’Regan told TheJournal.ie. “I started to get contacted for refunds for deposits people had paid. That was no problem. I’m a start-up with not that many overheads.
When I quickly realised that 2020 would be a write-off, I made my peace with it. This is my first year in business so I took it as a chance to upskill and use the time wisely. It’s time I’d never have had otherwise. I’ve been planning for next year with the kind of off-the-beaten track tours I know people will want to do once they’re able again. But it has been a long, hard year.
Positive signs ahead?
ISME – a group representing small and medium-sized enterprises – has conducted numerous surveys on business sentiment during the pandemic.
It’s clear that many feel they may be through the worst of it. In April, business owners were asked how long they felt their firm could continue as a viable going concern. At that time, just 20% of business owners said for more than nine months.
However, by the end of November, 58% of business owners were confident of seeing through the next nine months and beyond.
Neil McDonnell, ISME CEO, said that the end of the Level 5 lockdown and the increasingly positive news on vaccines “have no doubt raised levels of optimism”.
However the return to Level 5 heading into the new year brings even more uncertainty.
Government supports have indeed provided help, but many say that they don’t go far enough to help those who need it most.
And, even if things can fully re-open at any stage next year, there’s a recognition that it’ll still be some time before businesses can expect anything like the demand and bookings they saw pre-pandemic.
In the worst-affected sectors, there’s still a way to go before a strong sense of hope is widely shared.
The vintners have been very vocal lobbyists throughout as publicans closed their doors in March and some, to date, still haven’t re-opened.
The rhetoric in their statements has hardened as time as gone on, with the CEO of the LVA – which represents Dublin pubs – accusing the government of “malice” towards wet pubs earlier this month.
On the ground, though, there is a genuine annoyance from publicans that – through no fault of their own – they’ve been designated as running a business that is deemed too risky for Covid spread.
At the same time, there is a sliver of hope on the horizon that is growing larger. And that is that the soon-to-distributed vaccines could bring about a return to the kind of normality that’ll allow them to open their businesses again.
TheJournal.ie visited a number of Dublin pubs on the day many of them were allowed to re-open this month to gauge the mood.
It was a mixture of optimism and realism.
Ronan Lynch is the chairperson of the LVA and owns the Swan Bar on Aungier Street.
He gave a tour of his empty, customerless wet pub at the start of December in which he had installed hand sanitisers and screens separating distanced tables.
We are open today from 2pm hot drinks to go from @Powers_Whiskey @DPowerswhiskey @IrishDistillers @publinie @lva @dublinbypub @DublinTown pic.twitter.com/Wzk7HsszoR
— The Swan Bar (@theswanbar1661) November 28, 2020
“I want to be able to trade,” he told TheJournal.ie. “I want to be able to run my pub. There’s no signs of that. The future is bleak.”
Lynch said that there’d been a brain drain in the industry over the course of year, between people having to be let go and others taking jobs in different sectors due to being out of work for so long.
He said: “A lot of people are concerned that they’d be coming back for a couple of weeks and then it might be closed down again as well.
There’s guys I’ve heard working in construction. Working in supermarkets. They want to come back, but they can’t. People have kids, mortgage, household bills. You can’t pay that on €350. It’ll be a terrible loss to the industry if we lose these guys.
On the same day, Davy Byrnes was bustling with lunchtime trade as it reopened its doors.
Gerry Parkinson, who manages the bar on Duke Street, said that while the potential for case numbers to go up over the Christmas and into the new year is worrying, he didn’t believe there would be a return to the kind of lockdown we had for six weeks from mid-October.
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“I think we may still be able to have outside dining,” he said. “I know that’s not ideal but it keeps staff in a job. Looking forward, I don’t think everything will be back to normal until next Christmas.
I’d worry that the vaccines won’t be rolled out as quickly. So we just have to learn to live it next year and try to keep the doors open.
Slivers of hope
Rankin, from Vagabond Tours, is hopeful that he’ll be welcoming customers again – particularly in the second half of next year.
“We deferred a lot of business this year,” he said. “I think after this year, people will be ready to travel. We operate mainly on the American market. They tend to be brave travellers. I think that’ll bounce back quickly.
At the same time, there are lots of worries. But between the vaccine, testing and treatments and the work we’ve done in the industry on safety standards, there’s reason to be hopeful.
Robert McCarthy, from the Old Storehouse in Temple Bar, told TheJournal.ie that a lot of the business that goes through the bar he manages would be tourists and signs were looking positive coming into next year.
#SeasonGreetings and the start of a brand new week #TheOldStorehouse #HoldFirm pic.twitter.com/BCyktWpQjk
— The Old Storehouse (@theoldstorehous) December 7, 2020
“We’re going to go with the flow,” he said. “We have bookings from cruises, and a lot of bookings that would’ve been with us through big American bookings and corporate groups. They’re all coming in 2021.
They’re not really booked before June. Everyone has booked after that so there must be a feeling that things will be better after June. I think if we can just get through to Easter, I’d be very optimistic after that things will start to get decent.
O’Regan, from Eriu Tours, has been running small, socially-distanced tours with international students from UCD in recent months.
She’s also confident that business will pick up again next year.
“The way I’m looking at it, if you look at horse racing: as soon as the doors open, it’ll be first out of the traps,” she said. “People have restricted their movements for long enough now. They’re getting fed up, and bored.”
She said it’ll be up to businesses such as those in the travel industry to be honest and responsible with customers about the experiences they’ll be getting next year.
“We’ve had enough of ‘Zoom doom’,” O’Regan added. “People will be travelling again. It could even be within the domestic market and people going on more staycations. I’m looking forward to it.”
Whether it’s hospitality or tourism, or any other sector, the hope will be for a bit more normality to return in 2021, even if it takes a while to banish the memories of 2020 and put them to bed.
Rankin added: “It’s been a rotten year but there’s a lot of resilience out there in tourism. We’ve been through a lot and survived. This is worse than anything that has gone before. But we’re viable businesses. And we will be back.”
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