Cost of living: Hospitality

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 26 January 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We all know a coffee shop, a restaurant, a greasy spoon, a pub or a fine dining eatery that has closed in the last few months. But why, after two years of forced closures because of the coronavirus pandemic, are hospitality businesses closing now?

Leanna Byrne speaks to hospitality business owners from three different countries to find out how they’re covering their overheads.

Alessandro Borghese is a chef who owns restaurants in Milan and in Venice. He says he’s paying more for everything from food to oils and staff.

And Mandla Mataure is the managing director for the Chimanimani Hotel in Manicaland in eastern Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwe ended 2023 reporting a 244% inflation rate. How does Mandla deal with constant price rises when staff are looking for more money?

Oliver Mansaray owns the restaurant, Kink, in Berlin. Oliver opened his first ever hospitality business right before the pandemic struck. Like Mandla, he’s taken on the cost of living challenge by cutting costs elsewhere and trying to be more efficient.

Presenter/producer: Leanna Byrne )Image: Oliver Mansaray in Kink, Berlin/ Credit: Oliver Mansaray)

Transcript

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0:14.0	Find out more at the end of this podcast.
0:16.6	When I was at home with my family for Christmas, the topic of conversation naturally veered into how
0:22.7	expense of everything is these days. My uncle was giving out, saying that he paid 85 euro, that's
0:29.5	$91, for three burgers, chips and drinks for his family, and there's only three of them.
0:36.6	I'm never going again, he said.
0:39.1	Now, it didn't stop him going to the golf club for some pints a few weeks later. But as a business
0:44.8	journalist, I find these conversations to be fascinating, particularly when people don't really
0:49.5	understand or really care to understand why places are charging these prices.
0:55.4	I mean, Dublin, my hometown, is an expensive place to live,
0:59.1	so conversations like these are normal.
1:01.9	But I'm going to leave my Irish agenda for another day
1:04.3	because the cost of running a restaurant is really what I want to look at.
1:08.7	Right now, the rising cost of running a place to eat and or drink is a global problem.
1:16.7	Hello, I'm Leanna Byrne and welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service.
1:21.9	Welcome to our second Cost of Living series, where we're taking a look at how price rises,
1:27.1	supply chain issues and staff shortages
1:29.4	are affecting businesses and consumers. In our third episode, we're going to focus on the
1:34.6	hospitality sector. The reason for that is simple. We all know a coffee shop, a restaurant, a greasy
1:40.6	spoon, a pub, a bar or a fine dining eatery that has given up trying to battle this cost of living crisis.
1:49.3	Our villages, towns and cities may have withstood two years of forced temporary closures,
	...

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