Majority of hospitality operators would prefer to delay reopening to avoid restrictions, says poll

According to the poll of leaders in the pub, restaurant and food-to-go sectors, 76% of operators would rather reopen when they can run their businesses in some sort of normal fashion.

While the Government is set to publish a 'roadmap' on 22 February for lifting of lockdown, it is expected that hospitality businesses could remain shut until May.

Businesses also want to see a continued extension to the Government’s furlough scheme, with three quarters (75%) of operators stating that an extension would be either ‘very helpful’ or prove to be a ‘lifeline’ for the businesses.

A further 15% said any such extension would be either ‘fairly’ or ‘slightly’ helpful with only 10% saying it would provide no help at all.

The poll also found that just under half (47%) of operators expect their landlords to ask for full payment as soon as the lease forfeiture and debt enforcement moratoria ends in March.

Of those operators, a third (32%) said would not be able to make such payments, with only 11% believing they would be able to pay this without issue.

While almost half of operators (44%) of operators asked said that an extension to the government’s furlough scheme would be a lifeline for their business.

Business confidence has also dropped, with the percentage of operators saying that said they were not confident in the future trading of their business increasing from 38% to 42%

The weekly poll, conducted by Lumina Intelligence for BigHospitality, Restaurant, MCA, and The MA, polled the opinions of 223 business leaders.