The Delhi government imposed a weekend curfew after a meeting with the Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Tuesday. This decision comes a week after the restrictions were placed in the national capital under the Covid Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP).
Since 28th December 2021, Delhi saw an 11-fold increase in COVID-19 cases, which can be blamed on the Omicron variant. According to official reports, the city recorded nearly 5,500 new cases on 4th January, and reported three deaths.
Delhi’s Health Minister, Satyendar Jain, stated that over 80% of the current COVID-19 cases in the capital are of this new variant and added that the positivity rate jumped to a worrying 8.37%. While he ruled out the possibility of a complete lockdown in the national capital, he emphasised that a weekend curfew should not be as harsh as a “complete lockdown” and that the imposition of restrictions were in the interest of the working middle class.
However, these curbs have refreshed memories, and fear, of a similar lockdown in 2020 and 2021, when the hospitality industry bore the heaviest brunt of business disruption. Already the COVID-driven imposition of night curfew and curbs sparked a wave of cancellations citywide for parties, getogethers and weddings.
Traditionally, the Christmas-New Year period is a peak revenue earner for the hospitality industry, which spills over to few more weeks with weddings and celebrations all the way. However, many hotels and restaurants were forced to call off parties and music shows for which bookings were taken, and had to arrange refunds. They are concerned that additional restrictions will lead to more cancellations for an industry that was just picking up the threads of business revival.
Chef Gauri Varma, Owner and Founder at Confect and G’s Patisserie is worried that business will come to a halt as a result of the lockdown restrictions. “There is no clarity as to what the following steps will be, and because the numbers are rising at an alarming rate, business is utterly disrupted. Even the rumour of the next wave or variant is enough to put a stop to it. The lockdown had wiped out 80% of our business for us,” she said worriedly.
Anjali Aggarwal, Owner and Director, The Terrace: Restro Lounge and Bar felt that restrictions are necessary in light of growing cases. But since her establishment is within a mall, they anyway have to abide by the restrictions for both restaurants and malls.
“On the other hand, weekend restrictions or night curfew also affect our sales during the rest of the days since people get scared to get out of their house. “Our sales have already gone down by 30%. We don’t know how will we purchase the bar license in the coming March,” she lamented.
Aditya Tripathi, Managing Director of Cold Love says, “While recognising that lockdowns and curfews are important to curb the spread of Covid, our business has already been badly affected by the 10 pm curfew that was imposed at the end of December. A lockdown on weekends will reduce weekly revenue in our Cafes by as much as 40%.”
Vipinkumar Singh, Owner of World Trail pointed out that this lockdown will severely affect the restaurant industry where already several small brands are on the verge of closure. Building a delivery business with the help of Zomato and Swiggy is not viable and getting customers directly on the restaurant platform is not easy either, making this a Catch-22 situation.
“At World Trail, we have invested in building our own app during the first lockdown which has paid us good dividends. Dine in business will go down and there will be surge in delivery orders. Overall margins will go down by 80%,” he claimed.
Yogesh Sharma, Managing Director of Futomic Group, which owns the ‘The Flying Dutchman’ and ‘Jungle Jamboree’ chain of restaurants called this new move an excruciating slow death. He noted that things were finally looking up and the hospitality industry had only just started to recover when the ban on social gathering and weekend lockdown got imposed again.
“About 70% of our business happens during dinner hours, and now with a ban on late-night gatherings, even home deliveries have been hit hard. While we understand that the government has imposed the curfew keeping in mind public safety and rising numbers, this will probably be the final nail in the coffin for the F&B industry.”
While the country can’t lower its guard against the pandemic, the industry hopes that the government will not let the hospitality industry down.
