Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

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Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

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Businesses struggle to survive as the third wave of Covid-19 hits Cambodia
19 March 2021 9:10 AM
Sorn Sarath

It’s lunch time but there are only a few diners at the Park Café on Mao Tse Tung Blvd.

At the restaurant’s entrance, staff wearing face masks check customers’ temperatures and give them hand sanitizer before they are allowed in.

Heng Sengly, managing director of Park Café — which has 16 restaurants in Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville and Kampong Cham — said that the number of people dining in had dropped twice as much as they had during previous outbreaks.

“This time everything is getting worse than before. The third outbreak of Covid-19 is more serious,” he said.

With a total of around 500 staff, the company is looking to avoid job cuts.

“We are trying to find way to boost our sales to comply with the new normal of Covid-19,” he said.

Delivery service has become core to keeping the business afloat, helping offset the losses as indoor dining plummets.

“People don’t want to touch cash, so we have digital payment that offers a safe alternative,” he said.

Since the global pandemic began in January 2020, Cambodia has recorded a total of 1578 cases of Covid-19 — 1062 of them related to a single community transmission cluster that began on February 20, 2021, and which continues to grow.

Tep Virak, general manager of the Express Food Group (EFG), which operates six brands across 70 shops in Cambodia said that the company is considering closing some shops as the outbreak continues.

Virak said next week the management team will start to evaluate all 70 stores to decided how many shops must be closed.

“We hardly earn even a hundred dollar a day in some stores. It’s a hard time,” he said. “We will finalize with the management team to decide which shops should be closed because we cannot handle such a huge loss, we need to close to save costs.”

He said overall business has declined by more than 80 percent since the latest outbreak began.

EFG’s six brands include the Pizza Company, Swensen’s, Dairy Queen, Krispy Kreme, Bar BQ Plaza and the Coffee Club.

EFG has more than 1,250 employees, according to Virak, who said cutting jobs would be a last resort.

“We need to see the real situation — whether we can transfer some staff to other branches or whether we need to cut them as the last option,” he said. “For locations that cannot generate revenue we need to close them down. We don’t want to cut staff, though, because it will affect their livelihood as they may find it hard to get a new job during the pandemic.”

The government has provided a tax exemption for all tourism-related businesses or services since the start of the pandemic and has given monthly stipends to assist garment workerswho have lost their jobs, as well as poor people — though that is set to end this month after being extended in January.
https://cambojanews.com/businesses-stru ... -cambodia/
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truffledog
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Re: Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

Post by truffledog »

I would not miss one of them if they were going out of market: Pizza Company, Swensen’s, Dairy Queen, Krispy Kreme, Bar BQ Plaza, Coffee Club. Crap quality at ridicolous prices. Just replace them with artisan outlets.
work is for people who cant find truffles
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Re: Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

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I have no fucking clue how they've survived until this point with the 2k entry plus 2 week quarantine requirements. It's enough to scare most anyone away, now they're closing schools and workplaces again so you can't earn in many circumstances.
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Re: Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

Post by Bitte_Kein_Lexus »

KTabi wrote:I have no fucking clue how they've survived until this point with the 2k entry plus 2 week quarantine requirements. It's enough to scare most anyone away, now they're closing schools and workplaces again so you can't earn in many circumstances.
What are you talking about? None of these businesses depended on tourist arrivals, so the quarantine and deposit requirements have very little impact on their bottom line. Believe it or not, not everything here revolves around tourism. The local outbreaks and general reluctance of the Khmer population to go into restaurants is what's hurting them.
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Re: Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

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Bitte_Kein_Lexus wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 8:27 am
KTabi wrote:I have no fucking clue how they've survived until this point with the 2k entry plus 2 week quarantine requirements. It's enough to scare most anyone away, now they're closing schools and workplaces again so you can't earn in many circumstances.
What are you talking about? None of these businesses depended on tourist arrivals, so the quarantine and deposit requirements have very little impact on their bottom line. Believe it or not, not everything here revolves around tourism. The local outbreaks and general reluctance of the Khmer population to go into restaurants is what's hurting them.
Cambodia as a proportion of citizens is very high tourism, I assumed that would mean many people's livelihoods rely on tourism in Sville and SR. The regular businesses in PP are probably more hurt by the latter attitudes locally but it's all unfortunate. I could be wrong but I think the national GDP is very heavily burdened by no tourists. For every tourist in a year there are only about 3 Cambodians.
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Re: Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

Post by atst »

They mention people don't want to touch money , I've noticed a lot of places spay the cash now when you give it to them.
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Re: Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

Post by Marty »

atst wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 9:53 am They mention people don't want to touch money , I've noticed a lot of places spay the cash now when you give it to them.
Definitely a good idea, pandemic or no pandemic. Cash is the filthiest thing out there (well maybe an unwashed vulva is a little more filthy) and it could be a way to spot fake bills since real bills can stand up to a washing, while fakes might not.
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Re: Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

Post by Bitte_Kein_Lexus »

KTabi wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 9:00 amCambodia as a proportion of citizens is very high tourism, I assumed that would mean many people's livelihoods rely on tourism in Sville and SR. The regular businesses in PP are probably more hurt by the latter attitudes locally but it's all unfortunate. I could be wrong but I think the national GDP is very heavily burdened by no tourists. For every tourist in a year there are only about 3 Cambodians.
Of course, any businesses in Cambodia either directly or indirectly rely on tourism. However, tourists likely account for less than 5% of the sales of the aforementioned chains, which are part of the Express Food Group. I very rarely ever saw a tourist at Pizza Company, for example. Tourists tend to stay in very specific quarters and generally eat in very specific spots aimed at them. Very few (though they like to think the opposite) really venture out of these tourism hotspots. The larger repercussions are maybe reduced sales because of loss of income which some Cambodians are experiencing, but the vast majority of their patrons are locals, not tourists. The article itself mentions that their sales are down specifically because of the latest outbreak, which is the most severe we've had so far. People are staying at home, so business is down big time for dine-in restaurants.

atst wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 9:53 am They mention people don't want to touch money , I've noticed a lot of places spay the cash now when you give it to them.
Neverminded that the whole "touching" aspect has been largely debunked. It's good to be cautious, but the risk of contracting Covid from touching surfaces is negligible at best.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00251-4
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Re: Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

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atst wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 9:53 am They mention people don't want to touch money , I've noticed a lot of places spay the cash now when you give it to them.
Yes and it's ridiculous as it's the friction that clean the hands and get rid of bacterias not the liquid itself.

This is just all a narrative:

cash = bad
e-cash= good
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Re: Cambodia's Service and Hospitality Businesses are Struggling

Post by Grand Barong »

truffledog wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 12:55 am I would not miss one of them if they were going out of market: Pizza Company, Swensen’s, Dairy Queen, Krispy Kreme, Bar BQ Plaza, Coffee Club. Crap quality at ridicolous prices. Just replace them with artisan outlets.
Maybe you would not, but the employees and their families & supply chains connected to these businesses most definitely would.

Some nice artisan shops might open in these big lease premises where these multinationals struggled to stay open? Really?? :BangHead:
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