TOP STORY 2020 Budget: abolition of business rates UK: Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced an abolition of business rates for any business with a property of a rateable value less than £51,000 for the coming financial year. LATEST NEWS FEATURES VIDEOS
Editor's comment 14/03/2020
• The fast moving Coronavirus situation is obviously having a major impact on the travel and hospitality sectors worldwide. Leisure travel in some parts of the world is completely paralysed, while employers concerned with duty of care to their staff are cutting back drastically, and in some cases completely, on business travel.
And the sobering truth is that for many, things are going to get worse before they get better. But there are some positives among the gloom - this issue is not an open ended one such as the 2008 financial crisis, when we really had no idea how long it would take for things to start improving. The likelihood is that in a matter of weeks, or months at worse, the infection rates of the virus will peak and fall, and life can start returning to relative normality.
Until then our industry and many others will have to do their best to keep going. Governments around the world are going to have to step in to help businesses and individuals - in the UK we saw perhaps the first implications of this for the hospitality sector in Chancellor Rishi Sunak's first budget, in which he scrapped business rates for small hospitality venues among others.
And we will have to do our bit to help our communities too - Spanish operator Soho Boutique Hotels has made three of its hotels in the Costa del Sol available to the authorities for use as coronavirus treatment centres. The three hotels will close on Monday, providing 150 rooms for those infected in the city of Malaga. There will be many more examples of this to come.
This topic is obviously going to dominate the industry for some time to come, and we want to keep you to speed with how Covid-19 is specifically affecting the boutique and lifestyle hotel sector worldwide. We're keen to hear about your experiences - please email me at george@internationalhospitality.media with your input.
George Sell, editor
Katie Houghton
Group head of sales: media and events +44 (0)7535 135 116
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