Opinion

Days like these….

The last few months have been quite a roller-coaster ride for the licensed trade and other sectors of the hospitality industry.

 

As if chronic staff shortages hadn’t hit hospitality’s post-Covid recovery hard enough, soaring energy and food supply costs have joined hands with increasing supply-chain disruption and unfettered insurance industry premia piling into the fray and making the lives of many in the on-trade a constant daily struggle to remain open.

If Fáilte Ireland’s recent Tourism Barometer survey is anything to go by the sheer effort of will required to open those doors for another day is becoming too much for some publicans who’re desperately eyeing-up the ringside towel in their corner with a view to throwing it in.

And while things may seem less fraught in the capital, there are challenges, both local and national, for the trade there to contend with. In this issue we talk to the new LVA Chair Alison Kealy about the Association’s view of the trade going forward in these trying times.

In our Cover Story we also talk with some publicans around the country about their struggle with rising costs beyond the staff shortages and how they’re adapting their offering to tackle this aspect of post-Covid trade.

During Covid, there was no income to be adaptable about – hospitality was simply closed. But with the on-trade open again, never before has the publicans’ ability to adapt been so put to the test as in these last few months.

So all in the trade should really give themselves some credit (dirty word, I know!) for staying the course and reopening for another day come what may.

Had the Russian playwright Anton Chekhov times like this in mind, perhaps, when he stated, “Any idiot can face a crisis – it’s this day-to-day living that wears you out”.


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