Imagine traveling to a place without a single hotel. How would you cope without shelter? Hotels make it easier for people to travel far and near. You’re sure of shelter even when traveling to a new place for the first time. All you need is finance to pay for the room you’re going to stay.
The Covid-19 pandemic came with new challenges for the government and businesses. Many businesses were closed down.
Only essential businesses were exempted from the lockdown. But then, most people were surprised by the kind of establishments they found on the list of essential businesses.
The discovery prompted a series of questions, one of which was about the inclusion of hotels on the list. This led to the question many have been asking.
Are hotels essential businesses?
Well, the straightforward answer is yes — hotels are essential businesses. Health workers and personnel move from place to place, testing and treating people. They will surely need a comfortable and safe place to stay.
Some people may also travel from other places to a hospital for treatment and may not receive attention for a while. In such cases, the individual may lodge in a hotel, pending when the treatment or operation starts.
Again, most homeless people or those whose flights were delayed need a place to stay for a while. What about truck drivers that have been on the road driving for several hours.
It’s also crucial to note that each state and country decide what essential or non-essential businesses are.
Keep reading for in-depth information on this topic.
What Are Essential Businesses?
The coronavirus pandemic presented the government and businesses with a massive challenge. It hampered business activities, the economy, and our social lives.
During the height of the pandemic, the government’s paramount concern was how to reduce the spread of the virus. So, the plan was to issue a stay-at-home order. The reason was to reduce the spread of the virus drastically.
This order means that companies considered non-essential can’t return to business. At best, they can order their workers to work from home. Most firms did that.
What Are Essential Businesses Or Operations?
These refer to companies whose products and services sustain life. Shutting down such companies will make it difficult for people to survive this trying period.
The government understands the need for essential businesses to continue. By permitting businesses to operate, the government made it easier for citizens to obey the stay-at-home order a bit successful. So, essential businesses are in one way or the other crucial in the fight against the coronavirus.
Here’s a quick list of essential businesses. But keep in mind that each location (state or country) may have a different list. So this list includes services and products vital to the welfare and health of the people.
Utility (Water, electricity, telephone service, natural gas, etc.):
Utility businesses furnish the public with products and services considered necessities. There are public and private utility businesses. However, most utilities are privately owned and controlled.
Think about what will happen if there’s no water, electricity, telephone service, or natural gas for a single day. Most people won’t survive it. They won’t even obey the sit-at-home order. And in that case, curtailing the spread of the virus would be difficult.
So, utility businesses are considered essential. They offer products and services deemed vital for the existence of life. Instead of visiting in person to check up on a relative, people can pick up their phones and call whoever they want. It’s that simple and convenient. They don’t need to break the sit-at-home order.
Employees working for utility companies went about their normal work activities. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t put on a facemask or follow the COVID-19 health safety measures.
Fire and life protection businesses:
Fire and life protection are also included in the list of essential businesses and for obvious reasons. As a result, employees in such companies went about their duties.
Fire incidents can occur at any time. It doesn’t matter how careful a person is. The cause of the may not be your cooking gear, as most people would expect. It could be a fault in the electrical or wiring.
In cases of fire incidents, one would need the help of firefighters. It’s also crucial to remember that the government had privatized a smaller fraction of the U.S. fire departments. For-profit companies operate them on the public’s behalf.
Shelter (hotel and paid accommodation):
Since essential businesses are operating, there’s a need for paid accommodation, including hotels to stay open. Workers transit from one location to another, testing people, delivering medical supplies, or providing other essential services. They may need a hotel room or paid accommodation to rest their heads.
Hotels may also be confiscated and used as a treatment center. They have comfortable beds, multiple rooms, and other basic amenities that would make Covid-19 patients feel at ease.
There are many reasons people shouldn’t question the inclusion of hotels in the list of essential businesses.
Medical facilities (Hospitals, clinics, laboratories, ambulances, etc.):
Health workers are essential not just in the fight against the COVID-19 virus but the existence of life. They risk their lives to save people.
Medical facilities, including hospitals, pharmacies, clinics, laboratories, etc., are also essential businesses. These include private and public hospitals.
Let’s not forget that private laboratories have been helpful in the fight against the coronavirus. They are the ones doing 85 percent of the United States COVID-19 testing.
The United State’s COVID-19 testing capacity is bigger than in other countries. But despite this, laboratories (public and private) are still overwhelmed. Many patients have to wait for a week or more to get their test results.
Now, imagine the disaster if there weren’t private laboratories or none had the permission to conduct COVID-19 testing. It would have been a huge burden to the public labs. The virus’s spread would have been higher than what it is now.
Transportation and Logistics:
Transportation and logistics are essential for the movement of personnel and goods. Health workers and employees working for essential business won’t be able to operate without means of transportation.
It’s understandable that some people have their private vehicles, so public transportation isn’t an issue. But then, what about those who don’t have mobility? They would undoubtedly need public transport to move around.
Waste disposal businesses:
Including waste disposal on the list of essential businesses is a wise decision on the government’s part. Allowing kitchen waste to pile up will only make more people sick.
So the best thing was to allow waste disposal businesses to move free will. This aided the regular disposal of kitchen and other waste products.
It was an excellent decision to ensure people don’t have any reason to disobey the stay-at-home order.
Restaurant businesses:
Frontline workers, drivers, patients, people at home, and those working for essential businesses need food. So, adding food services to the list of essential companies is another wise decision made by the governing authorities.
Most food services made a fortune from home delivery services, which was also beneficial to people during the lockdown. Furthermore, many food services supplied food to frontline workers, patients, and others in need.
However, restaurant businesses were only allowed to operate under the condition that people must eat off-premises. So the food must be made available for pickup or takeaway only.
Financial institutions:
Money is still essential in this critical period. So there’s a need for financial institutions to be among the list of essential businesses. Besides needing money to make purchases, people may have issues and need help from their banks.
In most parts of the country, the financial institutions include currency exchanges, consumer lenders, credit unions, appraisers, currency exchanges, institutions that sell financial products, financial markets, title companies, trading, futures exchanges, etc.
Food and agriculture:
Sick or healthy individuals need food. Therefore, adding food and agriculture to the list of essential businesses is a no-brainer.
Since farmers were not part of those held by the stay-at-home order, they could continue their farming activities as usual. Farmworkers were also exempted from the stay-at-home order.
The last thing the government would want is to experience the problem of food insecurity. It will only make the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic more complicated than it already is.
Conclusion
So, hotels are part of essential businesses. You can see that there are many other establishments on the essential business list. What this implies is that they don’t need to obey the stay-at-home order.
Businesses allowed to operate can sell products and offer services. But that doesn’t mean they have to flaunt the COVID-19 protective measures. Each essential business had a guideline on how to operate safely. So, they must abide by the guidelines. Failure to do so will attract severe sanctions from the government.