A leading Inverness hotelier will welcome back guests this week but says re-opening will prove even more costly to the business than staying closed.
The four-star Kingsmills and five-star Ness Walk hotels will re-open on Wednesday as lockdown restrictions ease.
But they will return with reduced occupancy levels and room rates, while costs have increased to provide additional safety measures.
Owner Tony Story said it is costing an extra £10-£20 per room to increase hygiene and cleanliness regimes, along with putting other measures in place in response to the pandemic.
He has also put on hold a planned city centre hotel.
Mr Story said while bookings are starting to pick up, the hotels are also losing previous reservations due to lack of international travellers.
The Kingsmills currently has an occupancy rate of 30% and Ness Walk just over 17%, compared to more than 90% normally at both during the summer.
He said the furlough scheme and announcement on a VAT cut from 20% to 5% until January have helped significantly, but need to be extended.
“We are 40% down on rate and 70% down on occupancy which is massive. We have £130,000 worth of room businesses for August, normally we would be over £1 million.
“You have to be bold. We need to get some traction and get back into the market place but it can’t be a long-term strategy for the business.
“We’ve definitely seen the number of bookings ramping up significantly over the past few days, although we are also losing bookings.
“The domestic market will not make up for all the international travellers and we will have to push hard for the staycation market. It’s quite a challenge.”
The pandemic has also hit plans to develop a city centre hotel on which £1 million has already been spent.
“I hope we will see a resurgence in the business and it will make sense to do that development. But it would be foolish to put at risk the two other hotels by carrying on to develop that hotel when we don’t know what the market is going to do.”