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| Many people were happy to be back in a bar to have drinks |
Tonight bars and karaoke lounges are open for the first time in over two months since the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic hit. There were reports business was brisk in Lan Kwai Fong, above it on Wyndham Street, and along Soho, near the Mid-Levels escalator.
For the most part people complied to social-distancing measures of two per table and businesses including restaurants will have to close at midnight, two hours later than before.
It's just the latest loosening of restrictions that the city is adjusting to, and there are hopes the catering industry will be able re-coup some of its losses, though one wonders if things will ever get back to pre-pandemic levels.
Some people, like my friend YTSL have gotten used to not going to bars and wasn't particularly keen on going back right away. As research has proven, if you do something for at least three weeks straight, it becomes a habit, and for some, there is no need to visit their drinking hole anymore.
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| Long line for afternoon tea at the Grand Hyatt |
Meanwhile hotels may have been quiet for months because they have had hardly any visitors, but behind the scenes staff have been very busy.
One public relations person who works in a hotel on Hong Kong island told me how these days it feels like they are waging a war everyday, as in having to be extremely agile and constantly adapting to the latest government regulations.
Another hotel person told me of having to constantly update the hotel signage, messages to guests in rooms, websites and social media of the latest changes in dining hours, or the number of people allowed, and so on.
All the hotels have been suffering terribly since the pandemic hit in late January, and at one point the occupancy rate was at single digits, when pre-pandemic it was in the 80 to 90 percent range. This compares to hotels in say New York, that consider 65 percent occupancy a very good day. So you can see hotels in Hong Kong have been spoiled for a long time.
These days a decent occupancy rate in the city is in the 20 percent range, and more recently it can climb up to 35 percent on weekends with staycations.
As a result, hotel staff, particularly those in sales and marketing are under the gun to come up with interesting packages and promotions to lure local residents in to dine and stay.
Some have offers of unbeatable prices, while others have staycation packages that include dining credits, or even all three meals sorted during their stay, like The Peninsula. After all, it's a way for guests to sample more restaurant outlets in the hotel, and for the kitchen staff to keep occupied.
In particular the pastry departments in several top hotels have been frantically busy with afternoon tea takeaway sets. Why nibble on finger sandwiches and eat scones in the hotel when you can do it in the safety of your own home?
Granted you have to go to the hotel and pick them up, but that hasn't deterred hundreds of people from doing that. A few weeks ago there was a picture on social media of a massive line of people at the Grand Hyatt waiting to collect their afternoon tea sets for takeaway.
Some hotels even specifically designed a special multi-tiered cardboard box that can easily be carried by the handle.
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| Assembling afternoon tea sets at Four Seasons |
But again back to the pastry chefs. Typically they may make 30, 50, at most 100 afternoon tea sets a day. These days they are making up to 300 tea sets a day.
They commandeer a function room because they aren't being used anyway, and there they set up tables with afternoon tea sets being assembled like a factory.
The hotels aren't making that much money off these sets -- the prices have to be competitive, but at the same time taste good and have good packaging otherwise people will be disappointed if things have fallen apart by the time they get home.
While staycations keep rooms occupied, guests are only staying one night, whereas previously visitors would stay three to four nights. So everyone from the reception desk is busy checking in and checking out people everyday, and the housekeeping staff are constantly cleaning rooms after a night's stay.
And then there are guests who get wild and trash the room, like what happened at The Peninsula last week. A video was posted on social media of a room that was celebrating someone's birthday, but it was a complete mess. Someone's going to get a big bill for that.
<blockquote
class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Video doing the
social media rounds from The Peninsula Hong Kong of how guests trashed
the room.<br><br>Staycations are getting a bit out of hand.
<a
href="https://t.co/peYgMhGzbr">pic.twitter.com/peYgMhGzbr</a></p>—
Aaron 🇦🇺🇮🇩🇻🇳🇹ðŸ‡ðŸ‡ðŸ‡° (@tripperhead) <a
href="https://twitter.com/tripperhead/status/1304751607356166144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September
12, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"
charset="utf-8"></script>
Now that swimming pools are open, hotels immediately got inquiries if their pool would be open too? Many changed their reservations as soon as they heard pools would open today. But how do you (politely) control the number of people who go in and out of the pool without upsetting guests as the government has mandated it should be at half capacity.
Yet another dilemma hotels have to deal with...
