JOHOR BARU: Everyone knows the hospitality industry is taking a beating in these Covid-19 beset times.
Tourists have vanished, people don't eat out, and meetings and seminars are only held under the strictest of Standard Operating Procedures.
As a consequence, hotels are struggling and several have closed, some temporarily. Perhaps no city in the country has suffered the effects of these bad times as severely as Johor Baru.
Singaporeans who flocked here in droves in the past, especially on weekends, have disappeared, their absence helping to render parts of the state capital a ghost town, visible particularly after dusk each day.
But the most obvious victims of this malaise are the hundreds of former employees of hotels who have been rendered jobless.
Many of them have been jobless for nine months to a year, having initially, when the Movement Control Order (MCO) was first introduced in March 2020, taken pay cuts.
This was followed by a period of unpaid leave before being stopped altogether though almost all were told by their managements they would be taken back when the situation returned to normal.
Straits View Hotel executive operations manager Alice Wong said her 62-year old hotel is temporarily closed down but will reopen when things get better.
"All my 31 staff are on leave but they will still receive their salary as we know their predicament."
Jusri Jusoh, 58, was Food & Beverage Manager at the Sands and Sandals Desaru Beach Resort & Spa for two years before he quit in September 2020.
"I quit voluntarily because I knew the hotel was having a hard time. I didn't want to be a burden. As an executive I could see things were bad and to hang around in such circumstances, it's embarrassing. And, so I quit.
"But now after nearly a year, when there has been no alternative employment for me, and everywhere else things are at a standstill or close to it, I regret leaving. True, I didn't want to be an embarrassment but now I'm facing desperation."
The management at Sands and Sandals Desaru Beach Resort & Spa had assured employees who quit because of the severe slowdown in business that they would be taken back on the payroll when business revived.
Its general manager, Lim Lily Lian, said the hotel had a policy not to retrench or terminate.
She said some left because they felt they could do other jobs like food delivery, foodpanda or Grab, and earn as much as they did at the hotel prior to the pay cuts.
"We asked the staff who stayed after the salary cuts to multi-task," said Lim.
"Those who did not mind multi-tasking we have kept on the reduced payroll in accordance with our do not retrench and do not terminate policy," she added.
Anusha S. Manimaran, 29, regrets having left her supervisor job at the Sands and Sandals where she had been employed for two years prior to leaving a year ago.
"There was little work to be done and so I left thinking I could get a job elsewhere. The employment situation has become worse… I regret leaving Sands and Sandals.
"I should have accepted the challenge of multi-tasking and stayed and done menial tasks such as sweeping and cleaning," she said.
Ravindran Surinarayanan, 54, was neither hopeful nor pessimistic when he was retrenched after 20 years of employment at the New York Hotel in April 2020.
"I thought the business slowdown would not last long – at the most six months to a year. After nearly one and a half years of unemployment and no improvement in sight, I'm desperate for a job as all my three children are also unemployed because of the recession due to Covid-19.
"A family man cannot go on for long without a job," he said, with a worried frown on his brow.
A different situation with respect to employment was faced by Linda Wills, managing director of Sea Gypsy Village Resort & Dive Base Pulau Sibu.
She kept all 27 staff that she had on her payroll albeit at reduced salaries.
"When the lockdown came in March last year, we had projects and maintenance work to be done and so we kept our staff working, though it was at reduced salaries," said Wills.
The resort closed in March 2020 but reopened between June and September before closing down again. It reopened for three weeks over Christmas and New Year before closing again.
"We are planning to reopen for all those who are vaccinated from Oct 1. We have kept our staff but we won't be able to up salaries because we have quite a bit of debt to clear before things can be said to return to normal," said Wills.
Malaysian Association of Hotels Johor chapter chairman Ivan Teo urged hotels to be pandemic ready as this virus would not be disappearing anytime soon.
"If we want to embrace tourism, we must be ready for a pandemic outbreak in our premises and be equipped with the skills to handle any outbreak," he said.
Yvonne Loh, a marketing communications consultant said a few hotels are operating at minimum staffing with pay cuts and no pay leave, or are operating as quarantine hotels.
She said as a southern gateway, Johor is dependent on the influx of Singaporeans for shopping, food, petrol and others.
Clearly, the key to the restoration of the hospitality industry in Johor, especially in its capital, is the return of business to its pre-Covid-19 levels.