COVID-19 and Potential for Early Recovery and Implications for the Restaurant Industry

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic presented a global challenge to the tourism and hospitality industry, particularly the restaurant sector. While the impact of the coronavirus on tourism and hospitality is still unravelling, there has not been empirical documentation to assess the early recovery of the restaurant sector from the pandemic. Such an assessment is critical in informing stakeholders such as industry players, government and academia to continue to seek a comprehensive response to the global pandemic in the sector. This study uses restaurant databases, such as OpenTable, market charts and other reliable archival databases, to track the recovery process of the restaurant sector from the COVID-19 impacts. This study finds that although the pandemic led to almost 2 months of business stagnation, resulting in revenue losses, the restaurant industry has recovered from mid-May 2020, pointing to the sector’s resilience. However, the recovery pathways vary across the industry in different geographic areas. The evidence suggests that the recovery process will likely be long and slow. If the recovery was to be rapid, there could be challenges with staffing and resourcing of restaurants which could affect service delivery in some areas given modifications imposed by the impacts of COVID-19. A proactive approach is therefore needed to deal decisively and urgently with the eventualities brought about by the COVID-19 recovery.