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– All planes that are on the ground will fly through the air, and I think it will fly very quickly, says Petter Stordalen in an interview with the Swedish news agency TT.
Compare the situation in the aviation industry to that which followed the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, when strong growth followed a dramatic but brief shutdown.
– I never believe that the need for physical meetings has been greater. We are social beings and we cannot build culture on video conferencing in Zoom. At first it was exciting, but now people are tired, waiting for the day when they can meet people. That’s what I personally miss the most, the reunion, says Stordalen.
He must take the first available vaccine himself, regardless of the provider.
– I trust the authorities, he tells TT.
Four new hotels in Sweden
Amid the second wave, as corona infection reaches new heights in Sweden, he says hotel investment in the neighboring country continues unabated. Four new hotels will open in Sweden next year. Stordalen includes Solna outside of Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Helsingborg in Aftonbladet. Nordic Choice has seven other hotels under construction in Sweden.
Nordic Choice, which owns around 200 hotels in the Nordic and Baltic countries, has previously stated that 7,500 employees have been laid off. By the end of October, it became clear that an unknown number of employees had lost their jobs. According to the 2019 annual report, the hotel group had 17,000 employees.
– We continue to invest and, as recently as today, I spoke with new hires at one of these hotels. If you have started a project, it cannot be stopped due to a crisis. These are hotels that will be there for 50 to 100 years, and we’ve always been long-term and delivered on what we promised, Stordalen tells TT.
He lost 6.5 billion.
Not many have lost as much to the crown pandemic as Petter Stordalen, who has his life’s job at the Nordic Choice hotel group and investments in Ving and Hurtigruten. Recently, he estimated that 2020 will give him a turnover loss of NOK 6.5 billion.
Stordalen does not expect any improvement in the first quarter of next year.
– We expect a drop in turnover of around 70 percent for January-February compared to 2019, which was a normal year, and about 60 percent in March, he tells the TT news agency.
In a reader post in the Swedish Aftonbladet in mid-November, Stordalen argued that any restriction should be compensated for with a “state patch that stops acute bleeding.”
– Next year comes the real carnage, he wrote then.
New challenges
On what it takes to get back to normal, Stordalen says:
– It is about how long it takes before the vaccine is given and what restrictions are imposed by the authorities. But the hotel and tourism industry is making a comeback and what we are doing now is being prepared.
He notes that the second wave of infections has presented new challenges, including a new restaurant closure in Norway and a ban on serving alcohol in Sweden at certain times.
– Several companies won’t make it, Stordalen tells TT, but he won’t answer if he thinks Norwegian will be one of them. (Terms)Copyright Dagens Næringsliv AS and / or our suppliers. We would like you to share our cases via a link, which leads directly to our pages. Copying or other use of all or part of the content can only be done with written permission or as permitted by law. For more terms, see here.
