GNF Members Situation Update 17th March

In light of current circumstances, today’s GNF Board meeting agreed to postpone all GNF Sector Meetings and the upcoming Literature Exchange and Members Day on 25 th March until further notice.

The GNF team will continue to regularly update members with all appropriate national and local guidance including relevant support availability and information. Yesterday’s confusing advice from the PM and the lack of a Government commitment to enforce business closures, means the hospitality industry have no option but to remain open until further notice. 

To try and rectify this remarkably unhelpful position, UK Hospitality and the Tourism Alliance have literally just taken part in an emergency National Tourism Council conference call with Gov’t this afternoon. A link to the Tourism Alliance summary can be found here . We hope in association with this evening’s speech on business support by Chancellor we will all be better placed to understand what measures will be available to help businesses survive. 

At a local level during the escalating situation, it is crucial we all continue to support each other so we can help avoid any member business from the isolation such chaos can bring. At our special Covid-19 GNF members meeting at Careys Manor last week we agreed to create a GNF Members only Facebook Group for operational exchanges and buddying between members. You can join the group by clicking here .

The most important point is that there is real strength in numbers, so please continue to take advantage of the GNF network. We will shortly circulate some ideas to cover destination communication issues including suggestions for the short and medium-term messaging which can augment your own individual business messaging to our customer base and the wider world beyond.

Interestingly, destination website sessions are only 15% down so far in March and it may be that with more people at home this figure might even increase over the next few weeks. However difficult it all seems today, we will get through this. If when we do eventually get to that point it will be helpful if we can all hit the ground running together. So, in the short term we’ll also be working on the most effective and responsible means of achieving this as well.

We’ll continue to keep you all in the loop.

Very best wishes,

Anthony