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Lawmakers on Wednesday are voting to close down restaurants across the grand duchy, amid other restrictions, and while hotels can stay operational, their managers are expecting the latest round of virus restrictions to dent their business.

“We still have guests,” said Clovis Degrave, co-manager at the Hostellerie du Grünewald in Luxembourg City. Takeaway for outside customers and room service for guests will remain available, he said, “with a reduced menu but of the same quality.”

Degrave expects breakfast buffets to also be prohibited starting Thursday although he said there has been no clear indication on this from the government.

Numerous guests have cancelled their bookings since the government confirmed the latest restrictions on Monday, he said. “People don’t want to come to a hotel just to sleep and eat a beet filet in their room,” Degrave said, explaining that it was mostly people wanting to spend their €50 hotel vouchers who decided to postpone.

The government had distributed €50 vouchers to Luxembourg residents and cross-border workers in a bid to boost tourism over the summer and shore up the ailing hotel industry as foreign tourists stayed away. The vouchers expire at the end of 2020.

More than 94% of the Hostellerie’s 30 rooms were occupied last week, Degrave said. The hotel had introduced a special “eat and sleep” offer after an 11pm curfew came into force. Its restaurant accounts for around two thirds of turnover. “Without the restaurant, the hotel isn’t lucrative,” Degrave said. He expects occupancy to be at 71% this week at best.

Restaurants are expected to reopen on 15 December but the Hostellerie is already preparing a takeout option for the end-of-year holidays.

Profitability woes

At Mama Shelter, room service will be available for hotel guests but without takeaway for external customers. Fewer than half of the hotel’s rooms are occupied said its director André Pêcheur. “The impact is clear. There will definitely be cancellations,” he said.

The establishment, which only opened this summer, had benefitted from cross-border patrons who visited Luxembourg these past weeks while under partial lockdown. “That will stop,” Pêcheur said, especially when shops in Belgium and France reopen.

The Cigalon in the Mullerthal decided to close down altogether for the coming weeks. “Without the restaurant, people won’t come,” said its owner Philippe Stoque. The hotel had been fully booked for the weekends leading up to 20 December but offering food as room service only wasn’t an option for the hotelier, especially after a substantial number of cancellations.

The Cigalon might not reopen before the new year, Stoque said, although the restaurant is looking at offering takeaway dishes for Christmas and New Year’s. “We will restart in the spring, as it should be,” he said.

For hotels in Mondorf, the closure of restaurants comes coupled with the closure of wellness and fitness spaces. Thermal and individual spa treatments would be able to continue, said Patrick Le Meur, director of the Mondorf Parc Hotel.

The hotel will offer room service for breakfast, lunch and dinner, albeit with a smaller menu than usual, also to accommodate guests undergoing long-term treatment at the thermal baths. “They often stay three weeks,” Le Meur said, but they only account for around 20% of guests.

Business travellers normally make up another 20% of visitors with the other 60% staying for leisure. But the latter category in particular is now staying away. Between 30-40% of bookings have been cancelled and occupancy should be at just 15-20% next week, Le Meus said.

The Casino 2000 in Mondorf--that also houses a restaurants and hotel-- will close completely, a receptionist confirmed, as casinos are also being ordered shut under the new restrictions.

This article was originally published in French on Paperjam.lu and has been edited and translated for Delano.