Bringing a sigh of relief to the hospitality industry the state government has allowed further relaxations, allowing hotels and lodges to operate with 33 per cent capacity in a phased manner starting July 8.
Keeping up with the statement, hotels and lodges are gearing up to function again maintaining all the precautionary measures. In a statement released by Hotel and Restaurant Association Western India (HRAWI) stated that the body is abiding by the System of Procedures (SOP) proposed by the government and are also adding some additional precautionary measure as well.
"We are abiding by the SOPs issued by the government, alongside which we are framing our own set of safety precautions as well, these set of rules are not very different from the guidelines issued by the government and we are just trying to adhere by them," stated Gurbaxish Singh Kohli, President, HRAWI.
In the state there are nearly 10,500 hotels. All the hotels will be conducting contactless operations and cashless transactions. Guests would require to fill their details via digital notebooks instead of log books at the reception and the payments will be mostly cashless. The front office and housekeeping staffers will also wear PPE kits during their working hours.
"As our profession involves dealing with people, we have to take as much precaution as we can. Our operations will be as much contactless as it's possible and we will be encouraging cashless transactions as well," stated Kohli.
The rooms inside the hotels will be left unoccupied for 24 hours after there has been a check out for sanitation purposes wherein the pools, gymnasium and play areas will remain closed inside the hotels. Also the restaurants inside the hotels will only be operational for serving the guests.
Earlier, during the lockdown phase, many of the hotels were transformed into quarantine facilities, Kohli states if the situation demands then a hotel could both be maintained as a quarantine centre and a lodging facility as well.
"The government mentioned a hotel can operate with 33 per cent capacity, the rest 67 per cent of the rooms could be used as a quarantine facility if the situation demands. There's no need to worry as long as distancing is maintained," stated Kohli.
"The hotels that are being transformed into quarantine institutions are housing those who are coming from outside the country. Most of them doesn't have any symptoms and are fine" he added.
