How hospitable is the Post-COVID future?
Since of late, I’ve been regularly asked whether hospitality will return to what it was before COVID-19. The question, though seemingly straight forward has many twists and turns. Firstly, surrounded by a pandemic that simply won’t go away or just when we think it has…comes back with a vengeance to hit us in a new wave or variant - we need to face where we are heading.
Unless the world vaccinates people at a faster rate than COVID infecting people, in other words when infections continue to outpace vaccinations, the result is predictable. New variants arise, resulting in more infections. Meanwhile, the efficacy of the vaccine can drop in the passing months from 90% to below 50%. What this means is that people are going to need the vaccine, probably forever. But then, we eliminated smallpox and polio, so who knows?
Secondly, we’re gradually realizing the truth that escaping from a pandemic was never going to be simple. The recovery is going to happen in fits and starts bringing with it a paradigm shift in how we tackle it. All the time accompanied with a sense of unease. That’s for certain.
Thirdly, the way we do business, whatever model we adopt – it would be driven by our speed of operations, the technology we posses, the efficiency with which we do things and proper control of costs. These, together with been agile in these fragile times, will be a recipe for success.
When can we enter a hotel or restaurant unmasked? When can we give one another a handshake or hug? When can we sit elbow-to-elbow at a pub and enjoy a drink – without social distancing to get a round in? So many when’s…so many uncertainties’? And yet, one thing is certain. No matter what changes a pandemic brings, people will always want to meet people.
Although technology (thankfully) allows us to keep in touch, many people are struggling with feelings of disconnection and loneliness. Making and maintaining friendships is something that has to be done face-to-face; the digital world is simply no substitute.
Aristotle asserted long ago that "man is by nature a social animal" and that one who does not partake of society is "either a beast or a god." Socialization is an important component of the human experience, an experience that will continue even after a traumatic interruption such as a pandemic.
At the very beginning, eating away from home was a ‘need’. Over time, and with changing lifestyles, eating out including staying away from home occasionally, dictated by an increasing variety of reasons became regular. Thus the business of hospitality, historically defined as central to the provision of food away from home, increasingly expanded. Gradually a socio-cultural building block emerged embedding value systems of several cultures. With it, the enabler for the socialization of the stranger became hospitality… and it will continue to be so.
The world will be different in many ways when the pandemic is finally under control: more work from home, perhaps less travel, greater reliance on digital technologies, perhaps less socializing. Nevertheless people will resume their shared activities and attending events. Or will we go back to business as usual?
For now…uncertainty is for certain.
Shafeek Wahab – Editor, Hospitality Sri Lanka, Consultant, Trainer, Ex-hotelier
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