“At some point we have to draw a line in the sand and plan to get back to a new normal and I feel that is what has happened.”
“If we stay open, I think we’re all in for a cracker end of this year and into 2022. We’ve certainly seen enormous demand coming in for most months next year. “Towards the back end of the year, we’re starting to see international demand coming in as well. So we’re crossing our fingers that actually happens, but it certainly does look like it will be. “Bookings probably picked up 1000 fold [from when the December 15 reopening date was announced], where we might have been picking up $2000 a day in future bookings, we picked up $20,000 a day. “It was very significant and very quick. “At some point we have to draw a line in the sand and plan to get back to a new normal and I feel that is what has happened. “Companies are paying deposits too so the level of their confidence, that their event for 100-200 people is going to go ahead, that they’re willing to put the money in the bank and say we’re coming.” And if there was any silver lining to the border closures and even southern Tasmania’s snap
lockdown in October, it allowed Collis and the Crowne Plaza to fine tune their WorkSafe procedures. “The beauty of the experience we’ve had, we’ve experienced a little bit of everything without the major impacts – and financially we’ve had significant impacts – but not like Sydney shutting down for three months. “We haven’t had that. We shut down for four days in October, so all the plans we had in place, we had to put it in practice but we did it for a short time. “We did all our lockdown procedures and then all our reopening procedures literally in four days. “I would have rather us not do it but from a staffing and us practicing and training perspective, it’s hard to prepare for that until it happens. “Now that we’ve done that, we’ve learned, we’ve dealt now with people coming in and then having to isolate so we have procedures in place for that. “I feel like we’re prepared, our procedures have been tested a fair bit and I think the general public is a whole lot better than they were a year ago.”
Hospitality Review: December 2021 10
Made with FlippingBook Online newsletter maker