Who better than Hospitality Titan and Managing Director at CDG Leisure, Morris Greenberg, to give us his insights and opinions on the current situation within Leisure Property.
Here’s what he had to say:
Hooray! We have a roadmap to freedom!
This is great news for the severely damaged hospitality industry. With a clear plan set out and vaccines being distributed quickly and efficiently we can only hope that this time, with our eventual exit from lockdown and restrictions being lifted, the industry can plan to get back up and dust itself off.
We have seen an influx of entrepreneurial start-up operators wanting to break into the market, which in the past, prior to covid, has proven to be very difficult to do. This is due to the number of existing operators always looking to expand their brand.
The effects of the last year have shown that the ever-increasing premium value premises were attracting for their leasehold interest has been diminished and in many cases, rents are staying the same or are decreasing. This is coupled with favourable tenant incentive packages being agreed upon for fully fitted sites.
My instinct tells me this will continue to be the case for the next few years until travel and the daily commute is fully operational again. At which point, we will again start to see growth in the sector and in the values of these premises.
The availability of premises coming to market has not been as abundant, mainly due to the Government protection (Moratorium) of existing tenants, which is currently in place until March 31st 2021. It is prudent that existing operators who owe rent to landlords wait to see if this moratorium will be increased as it has been in the past, or if the Government will stop protection and maybe intervene in how landlords are to claim back the amounts owed. At this point, we will be certain to see the availability of premises either via the landlord or the tenant, from there independents will be able to start agreeing favourable deals on taking on these sites.
Hospitality will be strong again, as long as the Government help with bringing us out of the wreckage so that our much-loved high streets will be busy once again with exciting new concepts ready to feed our natural desire for socialising and the want to be fed!
