Well, where to start?
The hospitality industry is in dire straits – you don’t need me to tell you that. I’ve spent the last five days on countless calls with people who run businesses in our industry and those that work in them, it’s been both depressing and uplifting in equal measure. There has never been such a tumultuous time, but there has also never been such a showing of solidarity either.
Here at KAM we run research in the grocery and hospitality industries, so whilst there is little we can do to offer practical help, what we are doing is, in conjunction with the guys at MatchPint, is running frequent short research surveys to help us all understand the gravity of the situation. Yesterday we spoke to 300 publicans, 49% of whom told us they’d be out of business in a month and that 75% is the estimated number of employee layoffs in their business. We have been spreading this message far and wide in the hope it will bring about some immediate support from the government. If you’d like to do the same, you can find the tweet here.
Below are two factsheets about the power of pubs and restaurants. We are aware that there are many conversations happening with MPs and suppliers, and these use hard data to prove how important our industry is, and why it needs to be saved. Please feel free to download them to use and share.
The Power of Pubs infographic:
The Role of Restaurants infographic:
Finally, as a research agency, the best we can do in these extraordinary circumstances is to help to inform people and provide the information that we know our clients and friends in the industry will need in the coming months to help rebuild. To that end, we’ve made our consumer research report “Ontrade Outlook” available free of charge to anyone who thinks there will, at some point in the future, be a need to know what 1000 pub and bar goers want to see from the trade. Drop me an email and I’ll have it in your inbox ASAP.
We know that the report is null and void in the current situation, but well, you know what they say, knowledge is power and all that. So hopefully, when the time comes, this might be of use as we try to rebuild our incredible industry.
From all of us at KAM, stay safe out there, look after each other, we really ARE in this together and we’ll be rooting for you all. If we can do anything to help, please email: katy@kam-media.co.uk.
