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It has been a completely unusual summer for the tourism industry. For some areas of the country, there was great pressure from Norwegians who were going to discover and vacation in their own country.
Hotels in Kristiansand or Lofoten, for example, were around 95 percent occupied in July. Other hotels, such as in the Oslo area, have only had an occupancy of about 30 percent of the rooms. And it can get worse: many hotels in Oslo, the Gardermoen area, and other major cities rely on conferences, seminars, and other corporate events during the fall and winter season. Now there are more cancellations than new reservations.
– Like zero
Morten Thorvaldsen, Executive Vice President of Thon Hotels, says on TV 2’s Bare Business program that he is preparing for a difficult time ahead.
– It looks bad. The market in Gardermoen in terms of courses and lectures is roughly equal to zero. People don’t dare to be in big meetings, and companies don’t want to have big meetings either, says Thorvaldsen.
Thon Hotels temporarily suspended several of its 70 hotels when authorities closed Norway in mid-March. Before the summer, the chain began to reopen. But now Thon’s management is considering new closures.
– There may be a temporary closure. Or that we go to the step of closing floors and try as hard as possible to keep the business going, says Thorvaldsen.
– Drastic changes
For some of the employees, this may mean new or prolonged layoffs. But according to Thorvaldsen, the crisis can also lead to a permanent reduction:
– We should seek general changes in the staffing of our hotels. We can achieve dramatic changes in the tourism industry, says Thorvaldsen.
Thon’s manager believes that the hotel industry will generally have difficulties in the coming months, so much so that some players or hotels will have to close.
– I think we will already see bankruptcies in 2020, and in early 2021. I don’t think we will see any solution to the situation until there is a vaccine. And I don’t think we’ll see a 100 percent solution to this until 2023, says Thorvaldsen.
Possible closures
Because even with a vaccine, you don’t think international tourism, with tourists coming to Norway from, say, Asia and the United States, will return to normal until 2023. This means that Thon Hotels may also consider permanent closures of its own hotels. .
– We must be open to it. Because if there is no market to keep hotels open, then we should consider turning the hotel into other things, says Thorvaldsen in Bare Business.
He believes that a measure by the authorities can help with the situation in the short term: change the ceiling to the number of people who can attend conferences and other events that are carried out with safe infection control measures. Now the ceiling is 200 people, but with local changes, as now in Bergen, where the number has dropped considerably.
– I think the ceiling should be set at 500 people. Then we will return to the large conference units. If we have events for 500 people, at one meter intervals and the infection control measures that are taken, then I think we will see the light in the tunnel again, says Morten Thorvaldsen.
