No hospitality consensus on Brexit’s effect on staff, say polls

By Hannah Thompson

- Last updated on GMT

No hospitality consensus on Brexit’s effect on staff, say polls

Related tags Hotel

There is still no consensus among hospitality operators on the Brexit debate, according to two surveys released today, with polls disagreeing over its potential impact on recruitment.

On one hand, an HVS survey of 80 at the annual Market Connections event found that over 95 per cent of hotel property and investment professionals would favour a Remain outcome in the EU referendum.

On the other hand, an online survey of 1,915 UK hospitality operators across the industry by hospitality data specialists RPBi found that 49 per cent planned to vote Leave next week, while 43 per cent planned to vote Remain, and 7 per cent were undecided.

Similarly, over half (51 per cent) of those replying to the RPBi survey said they did not think a Brexit would lead to difficulties in recruiting staff, compared to just over a third (34 per cent) saying it would be more difficult. This was in contrast to hotel investors, who were concerned that it would be difficult to find the right calibre of staff to operate hotels if immigration were severely curtailed following a Brexit.

HVS London managing director Charles Human said: "The overwhelming feeling from our audience was that Britain should remain within the EU, not least because it removes huge uncertainties as to what will happen if there were a vote to leave.”  

Notwithstanding, Human painted a positive picture of the hotel investment industry as a whole despite concerns that the uncertainty over the Brexit vote and the forthcoming American election had seen global investment in hotels drop by 60 per cent in the first half of 2016. 

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