Six in 10 Singaporean restaurateurs unprepared with COVID-19 outbreak
57% were expecting to experience more than a half of revenue loss over the next three months.
About six in ten restaurant operators said they were not prepared and equipped to deal with the new COVID-19 outbreak, the Restaurant Association of Singapore (RAS) has highlighted from their internal poll.
Of the 302 member restaurateurs, 57% were expecting to experience more than a half of revenue loss over the next three months, whilst two sought-after remedies to this were measures to address rental costs and wage support.
In a recent press conference, the group noted that restaurant revenues, along with retail revenues, hotel occupancy rates and visitor arrivals, have plunged in just 22 days.
“The results are worrying. However, we believe that the full impact of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus has yet to be felt,” RAS President Vincent Tan said in his welcome remarks sent to the press.
The group, which has a membership of more than 450 restaurant owners operating over 4,000 outlets in the country, said it reached out to landlords across the Lion City to review rental costs of food businesses, which accounted for more than a quarter of their operating cost.
“We hope that they will respond positively to our call for help and seek their partnership to work with us to overcome this challenge,” Tan added.
RAS also commended Jewel Changi Airport for reaching out to food tenants and helping them with rental rebates.
Recently, the country raised the disease alert to code orange, the third highest alert level in their 4-tier color-coded system for disease outbreaks.
