Lockdown impacting hospitality sector; needs govt support: Industry

The government has also requested industries to not lay off staff and cut salary, where in liquidity is a problem

The lockdown to contain spread of Covid-19 in the country has had disastrous impact on the hospitality sector, especially for hotels, hoteliers said.

"The impact is disastrous. The hotels are businesses which are very capital intensive and also have very high fixed costs," Lemon Tree Hotels Chairman and MD Patanjali G Keswani told PTI.

The capital intensive component is normally debt and it has to be serviced by payment of interest on debt and repayment of debt. Hotels are also labour intensive, so they have lots of fixed costs such as wage bill, besides paying government levies, minimum load charges,