Just over three months into the COVID crisis in Europe, spiritsEurope launched its Fit for Recovery plan. Three months later, after intense consultation with members and partners across our supply chain, we launched the next iteration of our Plan, which acknowledged the great strides in crisis response that had been made across the EU, but also the increasingly severe fallout affecting the hospitality and tourism sectors as they headed into an uncertain winter.
Now, a full year after many of Europe’s bars, restaurants and cafés had to close, we have taken our efforts one step further. Together with our members, we decided to gather and direct our experiences and learnings from the past year to work towards a safe and truly sustainable reopening of the hospitality and tourism sectors.
Our #WeStandReady campaign calls for coordinated actions to achieve three objectives. The first objective is to develop an EU Task Force and Recovery Fund bringing together cross-sector representatives as well as national Ministers and the European Commission. Our second objective is to provide operators with the best guidance on how to open safely, which fully reflects everything we have learned about COVID over the past year and last but not least, support the development of a vision for long-term recovery.
To play our part in this endeavour, we and our members pledge to
We are certainly not alone on this endeavour! We joined the Tourism Manifesto alliance and the Hospitality alliance to develop concrete solutions to the pressing problems and help businesses and workers get the practical supports they need.
I am proud of our members. They were very fast to act a year ago to support their local communities and they continue by supporting their hospitality partners through this difficult time .
To conclude, #WeStandReady and you can count us in!
Ulrich Adam
Director General*
*In his capacity as permanent representative of SPRL ADLOR Consulting