In an announcement in line with the COVID-19 outbreak, Ghassan Aidi, president of the International Hotels and Restaurants Association (IHRA), said: “Our life today is facing the worst enemy and our industry is facing a crisis that it has never met before.”

Aidi detailed special measures the association will be moving forward with. These include closing IHRA’s office in Paris, whereas employees will continue to work from home. The Geneva office will remain operational with a very limited number of personnel (1) for now.

Also, the association has cancelled all travels and participation of IHRA personnel till May 30,2020 in all events they already committed to in Berlin, London, Croatia, Turkey, and Singapore.

The association is requesting all hotel chains to allow people who already paid for their reservations, to cancel them as they won’t be able to travel, while encouraging properties to refund these clients, or share with them coupons to allow them to re-book their rooms once the crisis is over. 

“Our industry will be suffering: Restaurants and coffeehouses are closed. Hotels are also suffering. We need to stand together to face this crisis,” Aidi said. “We did ask governments in most countries to ease or cancel some of the taxes of our industry members to help them as well as to help employees.”