Yesterday Flight Centre told ASX that 6000 sales and support roles will go temporarily or permanently around the world, and that 3800 Australian workers will be temporarily stood down. More than 200 of the company’s stores will close, representing 30 per cent of its presence in Australia. Before the crisis, Flight Centre was on track for record sales, which were up more than 11 per cent on last year.
Oh dear... Woolworths is about to get a whole lot of new employees.
The light at the end of the tunnel is getting a little brighter. The Guardian has reported than more than 500 cinemas have re-opened this week across China. The news comes the same week that the Australian federal government ordered the closure of cinemas across the country, with no end date yet set.
The message seems clear enough to me. The sooner we enter lockdown, the sooner normalcy will return.
The closure of Merivale’s 70+ venues “for the foreseeable future” is a sign of things to come for other venues around the country, with many more predicted over the coming weeks. Sydney restaurateur Justin Hemmes said he was “completely heartbroken” that this had happened. Venues closed include The Ivy, Coogee Pavilion and Establishment – a firm favourite with the Sydney event sector.
Sad to see Establishment go...
ID Events Australia is keeping cool under pressure says director of sales and events, Karen Livermore, who admits she has seen nothing like this in her 30+ years in the industry. Karen told micenet they were now “riding out the storm” and looking forward to a strong pipeline of forward bookings, with the hope that things would be back on track from November. The ID Events team is all working from home and is reportedly looking forward to a Thursday afternoon happy hour.
Refreshing to see a positive attitude.
Has anybody else thought of this yet? Find enough of those beds they use for space travellers and let us all take a nap for about six months. We can all wake up when things are back to normal! We’d love it and so would the venues.
Sounds good to me...
With its doors temporarily closed due to COVID-19, Dreamworld has decided to shift its focus towards those in need. Yesterday, the park donated 755 kgs of food to the charity OzHarvest. The donation will assist with putting 2265 meals on tables. The food included milk, fruit and vegetables, juice and pasta which would have otherwise gone to waste. What a great way to add a bit of light to these dark times.
What a great way to add a bit of light to these dark times.
The organisers behind Brisbane technology conference QODE have partnered with YouTube to live-stream the conference. It is believed that this virtual conference, which is scheduled for next week, will be an Australian-first. More than 4000 people are expected to take part in the event, which, aptly, will focus on the future of technology. It will be streamed free of charge.
They're refunding all tickets so they'll still lose a lot of money... but it'll be interesting to see what the results are.
Long-time Australian business event leaders, Sue-Ellen Nagi and Michelle Watts, co-directors of the Sane Event Group, have made the difficult decision to close the company doors after 21 years because of COVID-19 cancellations. Ms Watts said the coronavirus had brought the Sane Event Group to its knees and it was not financially viable to moth ball the company, premises, staff and ongoing overheads for the next 10 months or more.
micenet staffers have known Sue-Ellen and Michelle for many years and wish them well for the future.