SINGAPORE: During the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in 2003, Viji Jagadeesh lost her job when the accounting firm she was working in struggled with poor business.
She struggled to fill beds, with occupancy fluctuating between 30 and 40 per cent when the break-even point was 65 per cent. “We all could feel that we were entering a pandemic, and we were all affected by the drop in tourists,” said Adler Poh, the group’s spokesman and the managing director of Adler Hostel Singapore. “When the borders closed, we panicked.”
By the time Mitraa Inn was ready for this group in April, however, most of them had already found accommodation in other hostels, said Viji.But even with these Malaysian workers, hostels like Wink Capsule Hostel had to drop their daily rates from the usual S$35 to cater for this group. Another problem is that occupancy must be capped at 50 per cent to comply with mandatory safe management measures, which he said is not commercially viable for hostel operators.
“We’re in such a difficult situation now … We haven’t been viable for a long time,” he said. “ try to balance our costs, but we’re reaching the end of the Jobs Support Scheme .”