Hotels and restaurants in the Harrogate district are hiring new staff as bookings roll in ahead of the reopening tomorrow.
As of April 12, hospitality venues are allowed to open their outdoor seating areas, with many already fully booked.
During the pandemic the hospitality industry took a large hit, with forced closures spanning many months.
As well as the extra hands needed to meet demand, new staff have been brought in to replace those who left to find work elsewhere.
Wayne Topley, managing director of Cedar Court Hotels, said the company has been recruiting for months. The Harrogate hotel’s outdoor Tipi already has 150 bookings for the first few days of trade:
“We have a loyal team of great people who we are proud to say have ‘weathered the storm’ with us, but now as our hotel looks to reopen we are truly excited to be going out to market to find even more great people.“We have been recruiting and we still are for the months ahead. It’s a great time to join our team to be part of something pretty special.”
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Gill Richardson, landlady of The Bull Inn in West Tanfield, also said she was hoping to recruit more team members to manage the extra covid safety requirements facing pubs and restaurants over the coming months.
“We do need extra staff, we lost a few team members over the pandemic and policing the new guidelines will be difficult without more help.
“We’re nervous to open because it’s been so long but once we’ve got into the swing of things it’ll be really exciting.”
Martin Greenhow, managing director of MOJO group, said the company has lost some employees and would be hiring for the busy period.
“We are expecting this to be a very busy time and are really optimistic about the summer. But we will need to hire a number of new employees to cope with not only the loss of previous employees, but also to cope with table service requiring more staff and managing guidelines in a safe way.”
