Joining forces with industry partners to fight devastating effects of COVID-19

Twelve months after the first hospitality establishments were forced to close or drastically reduce their activities due to COVID-19, businesses in the sector are still facing severe hardships. With so much uncertainty ahead, the beginning of 2021 was a crucial time for HOTREC to join forces with its industry partners.

Earlier this month, we published a joint press release with our trade union counterpart, EFFAT, and together we called for the EU and its Member States to deploy a series of measures that could potentially improve the industry’s prospects.

Our asks in brief:

• Extending the EU and national funding programmes (e.g., State Aid and Cohesion Funds) for as long as it will be necessary – and, in any case, after December 2021.
• Avoiding over-indebtedness and the loss of creditworthiness of valuable companies.
• Supporting upskilling and reskilling: responding to the economic and social impact of the coronavirus will also pass through preparing the hospitality’s workforce for the digital and green transition ahead.

As of today, we are still working with over 20 associations in the hospitality value chain with the goal to establish a European hospitality task force to discuss the impact of the pandemic and come up with a roadmap for the recovery. Read the letter that we sent to the EU Institutions Presidents at the end of January to know more.

Last but not least, this month we joined over 60 tourism and hospitality organisations of the European Tourism Manifesto in launching #Tourism4Recovery: a campaign aimed at making tourism part of EU national Recovery and Resilience plans and showcasing the importance of investing in sustainable tourism.

We look forward to teaming up even more with industry partners all over Europe and together make European hospitality heal and thrive!