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Business is picking up in the hotel and catering industry. The owners of restaurants, bars and hotels oscillate between doubts and hopes.
The labor shortage in the hotel and catering industry could amount to 2,000 people by the end of the year.
“It will be a cake with a sweet taste above all!”. Aware of the challenges to be met, François Koepp, secretary general of the Horesca Federation (hotels, cafes, restaurants), wants to be optimistic when it comes to blowing out the institution’s 50 candles. “Buisness is back. Hotels and restaurants are once again full, as are catering training. We will soon regain our pre-Covid cruising speed”
And yet, the secretary general remains aware of the current problems in the sector, “starting with the shortage of labour, which currently amounts to between 800 and 1,200 people”. Jean-Yves Sebille, owner of the Threeland hotel-restaurant in Pétange, opines, adding that “this imbalance between supply and demand inflates wage costs”.
“We are going to have to innovate on products”
The same estimates “at 15% the impact of the increase in foodstuffs, particularly meat, fish and vegetables”. For François Koepp, “the impact on the customer’s bill is around 5 to 6%”. And, completes the boss of Threeland, “that is not going to change, it is we who are going to have to change our methods, by innovating on the products”.
If we add to this the rise in energy costs (“+45% since March!”), Jean-Yves Sebille concludes that “we are playing on a taut thread”, while noting, like François Koepp, that “the activity is well distributed”
