Hospitality Strategy: Reopening, Recovery, Resilience

The government has launched a hospitality strategy to support the recovery of the sector, including a dedicated council to oversee its delivery.

BEIS is to establish a Hospitality Sector Council to develop and implement an action plan that will deliver these objectives and review progress.

Business minister Paul Scully has said he wanted young people to see hospitality as “a go-to option for long-term careers”.  Initiatives will include bringing businesses together with universities to boost innovation as well as reducing the industry’s waste and plastic consumption.

To support the industry’s staffing shortage, the government will be highlighting opportunities in hospitality to jobseekers through the Department of Work and Pension’s dedicated work coaches. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is also understood to be in discussions with the Home Office on what can be done to support the immediate staffing shortage in the sector.

Recovery measures will include working with the government-owned British Business Bank and directly with lenders to support access to finance for hospitality firms so they can invest in their businesses.

The key action points in the strategy are:

Reopening

• Support delivery of the final steps in the PM’s roadmap by developing practical COVID-secure guidance for hospitality businesses to help them ease back to normal operations.
• Provide continued sectoral support, via a dedicated Minister and support team, and help remove any remaining barriers to full operation.
• Help the sector overcome current recruitment challenges by actively signposting jobseekers to hospitality vacancies.

Recovery

Work with the sector:

• To boost demand by promoting hospitality and enabling businesses to trade more flexibly, for example by extending current easements, as set out in the High Streets Strategy.
• To help manage costs, including bringing forward legislation to ringfence rent debt accrued from March 2020 for tenants who have been impacted by Covid-19 business closures.
• On access finance, including working with the government-owned British Business Bank and its delivery partners.

Business resilience

• Improve the long-term relationship between hospitality tenants and landlords.
• Work with Local Authorities and the hospitality sector to develop a model for hospitality led regeneration hubs, with demonstrators delivered in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.
• Work with the sector to learn the lessons of the pandemic for businesses and enable investment in future resilience measures.

Jobs and skills

• Explore options for vocational training offers that support career paths in the sector.
• Work with the sector to raise the profile of skills and careers in hospitality.
• Encourage hospitality businesses to participate in Government programmes, including the Help to Grow scheme, to improve digital and management skills in the workforce.

Hospitality and the environment

• Meet, create, and share best practice on environmental guidance to help businesses decarbonise supply chains and achieve Net Zero, seizing the opportunity of CoP26.  
• Reduce waste and single-use plastic consumption.
• Help ensure any recyclable waste produced is collected for recycling.

Innovation and Investment

• Bring sector leaders and businesses together with the UK’s world leading innovation system, including universities and InnovateUK, to support the creation of the next generation of hospitality start-ups, and encourage them to take advantage of emerging technology and digital trends.
• Encourage technology adoption by leveraging the Help to Grow scheme and working with Be the Business and businesses to produce sector-led guidance.
• Work with the sector to develop dynamic new operating models, including by identifying and overcoming barriers to innovation.

Community and Wellbeing

• Work with the sector to champion the role of hospitality in community wellbeing as we emerge from the pandemic.