CHENNAI: More than six months after hotels and restaurants reopened, most of them are still struggling to stay afloat. The reason includes increasing raw material prices, inability to pay loans and very few international tourists. M Ravi, president, Chennai Hotels Association said, “”More than 1,500 hotels have closed since lockdown and many more will follow suit.
As foreign tourists have stopped coming, none of the big hotels are occupied. Due to this, prices have been slashed by nearly 50 per cent.” “Also, the loans facilitated by government involve heavy interest. During lockdown, we were not allowed to operate.
But, for the same period, we had to pay rent, loans and taxes. The government must exempt this or give some kind of compensation to help us survive,” said K Sreenivasan, another member of the association. “Everybody got so used to ordering from home that most people have stopped coming. Since there is not much dine-in, even during weekends, the restaurant remains empty most of the time.
Only cloud kitchens are seeing business. It looks like ambience is no longer a factor,” said P Raja, a restaurant owner in T Nagar. “Most people who come are on short vacations. So, we mostly see occupancy only during weekends. A hotel needs at least 50 per cent occupancy to survive. Post Covid, we have even witnessed days when there was no occupancy at all,” said Shruthi Rajkumar, manager of a hotel on OMR.