What is the current situation?

“Oh,” says Olaf Feuerstein and then nothing more.

Feuerstein operates a large conference hotel and several restaurants in Göttingen.

Whereby that becomes less and less with the operation.

"We currently make around 40 percent of our sales from pre-Corona times, and the trend is falling," he reports.

“In October it was still around 90 percent.” The introduction of the 2-G rule in the hospitality industry, with which infections are to be avoided, was the first damper, and with 2-G-plus, business then really collapsed.

Feuerstein now has to send his employees on short-time work again.

Julia Löhr

Business correspondent in Berlin.

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Many are like him these days. According to a survey published on Friday by the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga) among 4,800 entrepreneurs, their sales have slumped by more than half since only those who have been vaccinated and recovered have access. The losses are even higher in federal states that also require a negative test. A few days ago the trade association Textile Shoes and Leather Goods (BTE) reported that the number of visitors had almost halved with 2G. Unlike last year, Germany is not officially in lockdown at this time. For many operators of restaurants, hotels, shops and cultural institutions, however, it feels that way. The ruling of the Lower Administrative Court of Lower Saxony, which overturned the 2-G rule in retail, does little to change this.The spokesman for Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) immediately made it clear.

While in France and Spain, for example, unvaccinated people with a test continue to have access to public life, and in Great Britain, despite a seven-day incidence of around 600, the introduction of 3G in clubs is already triggering heated debates, the restrictions in this country are much stricter.

For restaurateurs, retailers and cultural organizers, a lot comes together at the moment: Unvaccinated people are no longer allowed to go into the shops, vaccinated people do not feel like going through controls, queues and the sometimes additional tests that are required.

And some simply stay at home because they are uncomfortable with the high number of infections, even with vaccination.

No waving through

"I know a lot of colleagues who want a lockdown," says Feuerstein, who is also chairman of the Lower Saxony hotel and restaurant association.

“And I can understand her too.

From an economic point of view, it is not worth opening up. ”At the Dehoga headquarters in Berlin, restaurateurs report“ who would otherwise have made 3,000 to 4,000 euros in sales in one day and now only have 100 euros in the till in the evening ”, as General Manager Ingrid Hartges explains .

But simply locking the shop, as some have already done on their own, is risky.

Because then not only will the turnover be completely lost, but possibly also the state support.