Hospitality toasts a long-awaited summer return from Covid-19 lockdown

As regional hospitality businesses scramble to prepare themselves and emerge from months of hibernation, owners are grappling with serious staffing shortages.

Shoal Bay Country Club staff Brie Napoli and Abbey Rayner celebrate the NSW tourism sector being able to reopen over summer. Picture: Ryan Osland

Thousands of regional hotels and hospitality owners are gearing up for a bumper holiday season, but as they emerge from months of ­hibernation many are grappling with serious staffing shortages.

The pandemic-induced exodus of 200,000 foreign students, backpackers and skilled visa holders has left a gaping hole in the hospitality workforce, with many skilled positions usually filled by overseas workers still vacant.

The continued closure of the international border has meant many of them have been unable to get back into the country, and snap domestic border closures have made Australian workers hesitant to take employment away from home.

Restaurant and Catering Association chief executive Wes Lambert said the border closures had left businesses racing to rapidly train up a new generation of hospitality professionals in the ­absence of foreign workers.

Mr Lambert said some hospitality owners might be forced to shut down for certain meal ­periods or days of the week this summer as a consequence of the shortfall in workers.

“The hospitality industry in ­regional NSW is welcoming the return of Greater Sydney tourism coming back to the regions but one of their biggest worries is the severe staff shortage,” he said.

“The industry in early 2021 ­already reported between 30 and 40 per cent staff shortage, with some venues as high as 50 per cent shortage. As we emerge from lockdown, it continues to be a critical and dramatic problem that can only be addressed over time as both the state and international borders reopen.”

Strict density limits and caps on bookings are also likely to slow the industry’s recovery and mean hospitality businesses will be forced to operate in tough con­ditions for some months to come.

Under the road map, hospitality venues will be reduced to a 25 per cent capacity indoors until December 1, as well as a 20-­person cap on large bookings.

Australian Hotels Association director John Green said many businesses would struggle, calling for a further relaxation of the rules once the state reached 80 per cent double-dosed.

“A lot of hospitality businesses still have a range of deferred bills that need to be paid, and once they open they’ll have a lot more overheads, and so operating at such a reduced capacity will be exceedingly difficult,” Mr Green said.

“We need to kickstart the economy and hospitality needs to be a big part of that.”

Shoal Bay Country Club, located near Port Stephens on the NSW mid-north coast, is urgently recruiting 100 skilled hospitality workers in preparation for the busy summer trade.

A popular destination for Sydney holidaymakers, the venue’s operation’s manager, Sam Dick, said they were expecting a huge holiday season, with their books already filled with several social and corporate event bookings.

But Mr Dick said resourcing the large venue was proving quite difficult. “It has been hard sourcing people in lockdown, and super hard in the fact that our usual way of recruiting people is face-to-face,” he said. “So now we’re doing it all over Zoom, which means we can get (the interviews) done quicker … but how successful they are is another thing.”

Continually evolving density limits for hospitality venues until December under the NSW road map was also making it difficult to determine how many full-time and casual staff the business would need, he said.

While cognisant of the hurdles still to come, Mr Dick said he was looking forward to getting back to normal trading.

“We are excited to reopen but there is definitely going to be some hardship that follows,” he said.

“Every day we learn new information about what is happening, and it makes it harder to make sure we are opening to the right standards. We are going to open and hopefully put our selves in the best position with the information at hand.”