Hospitality Businesses Need Help And Fast Says Chief Executive

Colin Neill, the Chief Executive at Hospitality Ulster, has urged the Stormont Executive to move fast to give a lending hand to the ailing hospitality sector, which is under pressure from a number of quarters. April will be crunch time for many businesses in the sector, as they will then have to deal with the increase in wages allied to the rise in employer national insurance contributions.

Businesses Plan To Reduce Employment Levels And Cancel Planned Investment

In an article that the Chief Executive has written on the Irish News website, Neill gives some stats which make alarming reading. He writes that:

“65% of hospitality businesses in Northern Ireland are planning to reduce their employment levels, risking job losses and lost income for workers.

“Some 55% will cancel planned investment; 26% will reduce trading hours and 22% believe they will have to close at least one site. And these are just the headline figures that give you a picture of the pressures our hospitality operators face.”

If these businesses follow through on these measures then the hospitality sector will be in a sorry state. The sector brings a lot of money into Northern Ireland and employs a lot of people, so it is crucial that it is given the right conditions for it to thrive and grow. At present it seems that the opposite is true and that they are not being listened to.

This Should Be A Final Warning To Stormont And Westminster

Neill goes on to write in the article that:

“The results of this survey confirm what we have been telling politicians for years now: that the conditions in which hospitality businesses are being forced to operate will result in closures and the loss of employment. This should be the final warning for elected representatives in both Stormont and Westminster that the upcoming changes in April will be a body blow for many hospitality businesses.

“We are blue in the face stressing to politicians that these ill effects will be especially felt in Northern Ireland and asking the Executive for support.

“While we continue to take the fight to Westminster over VAT reductions and the reversal of these disastrous cost increases, we are calling on Stormont to deliver an interim support package to safeguard against the worst of these cost increases and accelerate the process of business rates reform.

“Everybody knows the Executive have tough choices, but if you are serious about growing the economy, the Executive cannot keep taking Barnet Consequential money that only came their way because the UK Government realised hospitality needed help, and keeping it from businesses, unlike England, Wales and now Scotland, who are passing it on.”

We hope that these words from the Chief Executive are heeded by the powers that be.