Anger, frustration, hopelessness. Hoteliers all over the country have such feelings. According to them, it has not been proven at all that the accommodated guests would worsen the pandemic situation in any way, and they consider the government’s decision to be a hard blow to the waist.
“I haven’t even heard anywhere that guests get infected in hotels! If we couldn’t open it on New Year’s Eve, it would be completely liquidating for us,” Nova Klára Sovová, the owner of the Luční bouda hotel in the Krkonoše Mountains, told TV.
“For the third time we will explain it to the employees, for the third time we will throw away food. We are running out of finances, we are running out of patience, we are running out of psyche,” Tomáš Hejduk, the owner of the Kozí chlívek pension in the Orlické Mountains, described the hardships.
The government is unlikely to add an exemption for hotels to the fourth stage of the PES system. “We are still negotiating all the conditions, but the exception for hotels is not being discussed at the moment,” said Minister of Industry and Trade Karel Havlíček (for YES).
During the one week when the hoteliers were able to welcome the guests, they said they did not even have time to breathe. As soon as they began to hope to return to the old dorms and accept reservations, everything is different again. Booked stays cancel and return deposits, new ones cannot be accepted.
“People do not confirm our reservations, they do not know what will happen, the reservations are at a standstill. We do not collect deposits, it is a gallows for us in that we need for salaries, for coal for energy,” said the owner of the Orlice Hotel in Deštná Miroslav Skalický.
Hoteliers in the Giant Mountains have already agreed that they will sue the government for lost profits.
“We are preparing a lawsuit, people from other boarding houses have been calling me since this morning. We will go to court, we will ask for what is in Austria, ie certain shares in sales,” said Sovová. “State administration and self-government bodies are already doing something that is unacceptable,” her partner Stanislav Beneš is angry.
“We do not see the light at the end of the tunnel, it is an incredibly bad decision of the government, closing over the Christmas holidays is on the verge of bankruptcy for hoteliers,” said Martin Jandura from the information center in Špindlerův Mlýn.
Further losses will follow. Even if, in the end, they open ski resorts, for example, their revenues without accommodated guests will be minimal.
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