Hospitality businesses believe vaccine passports will likely be introduced, poll finds
Half of all hospitality businesses surveyed thought it was ‘fairly likely’ or ‘very likely’ a Covid certification for hospitality would be introduced by at a later stage, according to Lumina’s Intelligence’s Hospitality Leader’s Poll, despite the Government having so far ruled them out.
Only 8% of respondents believe it to be ‘very unlikely’ that Covid passports would not come into use at some stage.
Last month the Government said it would consider whether Covid-status certification - commonly referred to as a 'vaccine passport' - could play a role in the full reopening of the economy, with potential plans to scrap social-distancing rules and demand customers present Covid passports in hospitality and leisure venues.
The hospitality sector has also expressed confidence in the re-opening roadmap for England, the poll has also found.
Just under three quarters (74%) of businesses say they are confident or very confident that the rest of the re-opening roadmap will continue as planned.
With pubs and restaurants in England able to reopen for outside trading from the start of this week, most operators say they are confident that the country is on track to allow venues to reopen for trading inside from 17 May, with all limits on social distancing lifted by 21 June.
However, the poll also found that businesses that had reopened their outside spaces were worried about what the weather in the next five weeks will bring, with 75% of those re-opening their outdoor space were concerned about rainy and cold conditions.
Many hospitality venues remain closed because of a lack of sufficient outside trading space, with 39% of respondents saying the weather was not an issue because they weren’t reopening.
Almost three quarter of the respondents (72%) say they are either quite confident, confident, or very confident about the future of their business, up three percentage points on the previous week.
The Hospitality Leaders Poll is a conducted by Lumina Intelligence on behalf of BigHospitality, MCA, and the Morning Advertiser
