'We’re on our knees': Sask. hospitality industry crippled by Omicron
Jim Bence says the combination of the Omicron COVID-19 variant and freezing temperatures hammered the Saskatchewan hospitality industry over the holiday season.
“We're seeing hotels that those meetings and events just completely evaporated for January, February, anything that was on books, was gone by mid-December,” said Bence, president and CEO of the Hospitality Saskatchewan Association.
“We're out of money. We're on our knees.”
Bence says some employees that were laid off at the beginning of the pandemic were rehired and laid off again, creating less confidence in the industry and adding extra stress to the employees that remained.
According to Bence, the restaurant industry is "hanging on by fingernails."
“When you talk about on-table service you get a situation in which the variant has come up, people are a little bit more hesitant again,” he said.
“The cold, the polar vortex for three weeks, I mean people just really hunker down.”
While some restaurants have been able to pivot by adding a delivery component to their business, the hotel industry can't do the same thing.
“You cannot make somebody stay at your property,” Bence said. “You may have 200 rooms and you might have filled 100 of them on any given night, now you're down to you’re filling 20 or 30.”
“We're coming up upon two years of devastating revenue losses,” said Shawna Nelson, chair of the Saskatoon Destination Marketing Hotels Incorporated.
“The year ahead doesn't look too promising with the latest challenges that we're having with Omicron, and of course then there's the hint of other variants that are around the corner. This has created an environment of uncertainty.”
But, Nelson says, it’s not all bad news for hotels.
“We have the Saskatchewan advantage,” she said. “Just the other day our city received a lead for a bid for something that's coming right here around the corner in March because (of) the restrictions that are in Ottawa right now.
“Anyone that's planning anything in the next couple of months and are unable to do so in certain provinces, well, we are open and we hope they would consider looking at Saskatchewan.”
Nelson, who’s also the director of sales and marketing at the Sheraton Cavalier Hotel in Saskatoon, says she’s had to get creative in using space.
“We did take a look at that, and provide packages for working offices here at the hotel,” she said.
“Same with weddings. When the gathering numbers were different but yet you could still meet in the restaurants, because our hotel has a number of different restaurant outlets there were weddings that were happening in our food and beverage outlets, rather than in a traditional meeting space.”
Despite the creativity, Bence says with fixed costs reaching up to $250,000 a month, some hotels won’t be able to survive.
“Our downtown properties in Saskatoon anecdotally for the month of January are sitting at anywhere between 25 and 30 per cent occupancy. You can't even turn the lights on for that amount of money,” he said.
“Arguably we're in far worse shape than we were even a year ago.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Northern Ont. lawyer who abandoned clients in child protection cases disbarred
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Bank of Canada officials split on when to start cutting interest rates
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Maple Leafs fall to Bruins in Game 3, trail series 2-1
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuban government apologizes to Montreal-area family after delivering wrong body
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
'It was instant karma': Viral video captures failed theft attempt in Nanaimo, B.C.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
What is changing about Canada's capital gains tax and how does it impact me?
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
New Indigenous loan guarantee program a 'really big deal,' Freeland says at Toronto conference
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
'Life was not fair to him': Daughter of N.B. man exonerated of murder remembers him as a kind soul
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.