Government's announced a new board aiming to tackle issues faced by the hospitality industry.
It's the latest support measure for the sector announced by the Department for Enterprise.
The 'primary objectives' of the Hospitality Isle of Man Board are said to be fostering collaboration, enhancing food and drink tourism and proactively addressing the challenges.
Experts from across the industry have been appointed, including cafés, restaurants, pubs, bars, takeaways and hotels following the expression of interest process which was carried out in July.
Jamie Lewis is the chair and has been telling Amy Griffiths more:
Hi there. I'm Amy Griffiths and I'm one of the journalists in Manx Radio's Newsroom and you're listening to Newscast. My name is Jamie Lewis. I'm chair of Hospitality, Isle of Man and Managing Director of Extra Fantasy Limited. This was something I joined the business agency board back in January and I bought it to the board that we, I would like to establish a hospitality specific group. This would be an independent board formed of businesses from around the island but it was really important for that to be a broad coalition of hospitality businesses. Traditionally we, you know, we've had some incredible organizations formed but they're kind of more niche in their approach. It was really important for me that, you know, we included everything from wet-led businesses, pubs, restaurants, bars, cocktail bars, wineries, everything that we have and these represented a lot to sit alongside, the hotels, the accommodation providers, the tourism sector, experience-led venues, cafes, you know, non-wet-led businesses. We all have similar, you know, issues and things that will need to be addressed and I think that the strength is in the unity of that not in, not otherwise. And what are you hoping are going to be the main aims for the board? And so we're still, we've had our first meeting already. We're in the process of kind of defining those but for me on a personal level it's to kind of, it's to drive hospitality as a career choice, you know, we have people leaving the island. I think that hospitality can offer huge advantages and I've seen that for members of my staff. They've been able to travel to around the world as part of their kind of bartending journey and I don't want them to see the island man as a limiting factor to that. So career development is really important to me but you know, it's there as an advisory, in an advisory capacity to government so that, you know, God forbid something like COVID happened again, that they have a direct line into an established direct line into hospitality businesses and all of those people, all of those organisations that already exist have seats on the board as well. So that those, you know, those conversations aren't happening in silo, they're happening and being brought back to the table with a direct line into government. And how positive do you feel about that relationship with government? Do you feel like they are in a position where they're happy to listen? Yeah, absolutely. Just just by sheer nature of the board being established and existing, as I said, it is an independent board, the government, you know, supporting us initially with kind of secretarial bits and things and actually getting us establishing off the ground. We've had a direct line into initiatives such as the max menu, we just finished a subcommittee meeting this morning. There were some concerns that people had from other people amongst ourselves that that initiative should be a little more inclusive so that, you know, a cafe could feel like it could enter every component of that or not just be restaurant focused so that there are some, hopefully some slight amends to come out of that. But yeah, that's an established activation that government have listened this morning and are working on that. And there has been some feedback so far since the news of the creation of the board was announced that people saying, "Oh, it's just another committee, another board." And how do you respond to that? Well, I feel like if those people that, you know, spend their days in effectively in a committee on Facebook, hitting the comments sections, putting it to some good rather than just being negative, we'd live in a much better place. You know, these are people that own their own businesses that are taking time out of their days, you know, in an unpaid voluntary capacity to try and improve the sector as a whole. And one of our core, the overwhelming kind of conversation at the start of the first board meeting that we held is that it is not a place to complain, it's a place to be proactive and it's a place to, you know, initiate change, not just a moan about it. And from your perspective and from your experience within the industry at the moment, what do you think are some of the key challenges that the island is facing at the moment? So I think that there are a lot of unique challenges on the Isle of Man by virtue of being on an island. You know, I'm not alone in the cost of freight to the Isle of Man is quite expensive because we all feel that on an individual level, you know, getting on the boat is a very expensive stretch of water to cross. And I'm not a boat expert, but there will be experts in that field that might want to talk to our businesses about how those, you know, how that impacts us. And like, you know, it's easy to kind of, it's easy to think that hospitality businesses, you know, it's busy. So it's making a lot of money. But those things that people are feeling when they go, you know, to Tesco and buy a loaf of bread and see that that price, the cost of that price of bread has gone up for them on an individual level. That cost of bread has gone up in a restaurant, which means the restaurant has to put their prices up. And you know, that's impacted by, you know, macroeconomics, but there are controllable things like, you know, the steam packet is, um, taxpayer owned currently. So, you know, that, that it should be something that we can, you know, hopefully impact some kind of change. And the enterprise minister has come out within the last week to say that businesses are going to have to ask difficult questions about their sustainability and that this isn't going to be sort of, you know, like, they can't have a magic plaster that's going to fix everything. And do you feel like that's the right attitude, I suppose? Or do you feel like there should be a bit more being done to be supportive? I think that so long as the government is, you know, applying that approach to government, which I, you know, the, the feedback from the government conferences, you know, that is the feedback that's coming out that, you know, the budget for the NHS, there's no magic money tree for them to, you know, continue funding the overspends there. So if that logic's been applied across the board, then yeah, of course, like we're business owners and we have to, you know, we have to make tough decisions. Um, what, you know, what we want is the, the cost of doing business on the Isle of Man to be cheaper. And I think that that, um, that's something that the whole, uh, you know, the whole island can focus on. It's not just a hospitality related problem, which is why I, you know, I talked about the steam packet previously. That's something that impacts everybody both on a personal level, but also on a, you know, on a business level, that's, it's a really expensive cross of land, a cross of water, sorry, to get products across, you know, we, we live on an island. We, that's our lifeline. We need it to work, but that has to be sustainable. You mentioned some of the initiatives that are already being planned. So the max menu is one of the ones that you're already focusing on. In fact, tonight there's a meet the producers event already happening. That's already been organized and things. So how are you hoping that those are going to start raise awareness, I suppose, of the issues, the continued issues of the industry? I think as well, it doesn't necessarily need to be issue focused. It needs to be, you know, we need to focus on supporting our local economy. And the initiative tonight, I think, is amazing. We did, the business agency did this event in London earlier this year, where they invited chefs from across London, across the country to come and, you know, to the IFE event to meet, you know, max producers and for them to strike up connections. I think that's a really, really important part of government to, you know, to kind of help make those introductions for people. What's more important is that we, you know, that is, that happens on a local level, and that those, you know, the restaurant owners and cafe owners have the opportunity to meet those suppliers. And there may be people that they're not, you know, they're not working with currently that they could make a connection with at the event this evening. And do you feel like sometimes, even though we are a very small island, that actually is quite easy to forget about the local suppliers and providers and manufacturers that we have right on our doorstep? Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, everybody is so focused on their business that, of course, it's easy to miss, but that's why I'd like to say that an event like this this evening, to get everybody in the same room, to get, you know, the producers to meet with restaurants that they like, likewise, may not know, exist. They may be a small operation that can't afford a sales team or can't afford someone to, you know, someone to go out there and make direct connections into those businesses. So I do believe it's an important part, an important role for government in helping facilitate those conversations, yeah. Going back to the board as a whole, I suppose it's probably a fairly difficult question to answer, but how do you think, as its chair, you will measure its success, say in this time, in a year's time, five years time? Yeah, I guess if we're still going, I think that if we've, you know, we've not been given the boot, but no, I genuinely, I think that success is measured in the results. And, you know, I kind of, it's hard to say we've met once and we've all kind of put our ideas down on the table. It's now for us to go away, think about what's important and set those kind of guidelines, you know, for what we want to impact. Part, the reason it was important to work with both visit and visit Alaman and the business agency is that hospitality kind of straddles both of those. It's not in once, not in the other, like, business agency is looking internally. So our local economy, you know, the strategy that was released a couple of weeks ago and visit is focusing on, you know, bringing people to our shores and we need a kind of perfect balance of those things for our businesses to thrive. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manx Radio Newscast. You are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manx Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider, so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
