Are restaurants, bars, and hotels soon to reopen in more normal conditions…? In the absence of a clear answer, the government has decided to go ahead and present this Tuesday March 16 a three-step reopening plan in order to enable places involved to anticipate recovery conditions.
A plan presented by Minister for SMEs Alain Griset, Secretary of State for Digital Cédric O, Secretary of State for Tourism Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne, and Laurent Pietraszewski replacing Minister of Labor Elisabeth Born currently self-isolating as she caught Covid.
A plan said to include three steps, each expected to last four weeks. As explained by Le Figaro, the first step “will enable hoteliers to serve breakfast to their clients”. GNC-UMIH president Jean-Virgile Crance explains Le Figaro: “We asserted that in this framework, it would also make sense to enable to serve dinner, setting a reception gauge”. A first step during which outdoor swimming pools of the very facilities might also reopen.
Moving on to the second step, it will enable the reopening of restaurants and bars, under some conditions. Among them, a 50% reception gauge, as well as measures already instated before closing (six people per table maximum, social distancing, and so on…), or the implementation of compulsory QR Code to alert patrons in the event they are contact cases – among others. Conditions that will yet not apply to terraces. Note that during this step, hotels’ indoor swimming pools might also reopen.
Please note according to Le Point, restaurants, bars, and cafés might be able to welcome their patrons starting May 17, 2021 on their terraces before being able to open their indoor rooms, by June 15, 2021, if the health situation allows it.
The last step consists in more normal resuming for the sector, with almost maximum reception capacity. As to know when these protocols will be instated, no information has been unveiled so far, since no reopening date has been announced during the video conference, but the government promises a three-week “consideration delay” ahead to prevent establishments to taken by surprise. The date depends on the population vaccination rate and the number of daily new cases.
Yet note that nightclubs are not part of this recovery plan for the moment. Professionals of the sector are to propose the government by late March a health protocol to instate from the reopening.
