A survey to identify the state of the hospitality industry in the wake of Covid-19 challenges, undertaken by hospitality software company Loaded amongst New Zealand and Australian businesses, has produced unexpectedly optimistic results.
Loaded CEO Richard McLeod says the survey, Resilience and Readiness, aimed to understand the health of the industry as it moves towards 2021 and the key solutions that may be required to help hospitality operators in the coming 12 months.
“Despite a super challenging year the industry is showing phenomenal resilience and optimism. Obviously, the uncertainty about the future is still creating concern but we have been really surprised by the confidence being shown by many businesses.”
The survey statistics show that 60.3 % of owners and managers consider the prospects for their business over the next 12 months are positive or very positive while 32.6% expect to employ more people within the next year.
In terms of the affect the pandemic has had on mental health 64.5% of owners and managers believed their own mental health was as good as they expected or better than expected as a result of Covid-19 while 76.7% claimed the mental health effects on their team had been as good as or better than expected when initial lockdowns were put in place.
“There were positive comments about the impact of the Covid-19 lockdown such as businesses taking the opportunity to master the technology they had in place and iron out any issues they had pre-Covid.” says McLeod. “The time that Lockdown created for strategic thinking and working through implementation of important changes is not something the industry has ever experienced before and was certainly a silver lining for those who used the available time to their advantage”
Despite the optimism the constant uncertainty throughout the year and the effect this had on hospitality business owners can not be understated. A significant number of respondents specified the constant change and uncertainty and not knowing what the future holds as being the most stressful part of operating their business in 2020.
The Resilience and Readiness Survey will be completed annually and will help provide the industry a marker to understand the health and success metrics of the industry as well as the sector’s embrace of technology to assist with productivity gain.
“We see this annual survey and report becoming the most significant marker in the progress of the hospitality industry in New Zealand and Australia.” explains McLeod.
