Resources
Visit Britain's Business Hub brings together various useful resources, such as the latest developments affecting tourism and hospitality, a consumer sentiment tracker, and guidance on reopening. Here's a link to the latest updates for the tourism industry.
UK Hospitality has been providing excellent free resources during the pandemic (usually available to paying members only), including reopening guidance, a daily email update, and a very useful risk assessment template.
Likewise the Professional Association of Self Caterers (PASCUK) has been providing free resources including a daily update, cleaning checklists, a template for writing to insurance companies, and a risk assessment.
Track and Trace
Designated venues in certain sectors must have a system in place to request and record contact details of their customers, visitors and staff – find out more here. There is also a new NHS COVID-19 app that allows customers to check themselves in – create a QR poster for your venue here.
Face coverings
The government has updated its guidance on when, where and how to wear face coverings – you can read it here.
Gatherings, public spaces and activities
This guidance is being regularly updated, and we recommend you check the latest status on the government's Visitor Economy page.
Financial support
With a confusing number of grants, loans and schemes on offer now, rather than list them all here we suggest you use Gov.uk's Business Coronavirus Support Finder tool.
Campaigns
From Know Before You Go and Respect, Protect, Enjoy, we've now moved on to the autumn campaign Escape the Everyday, which aims to encourage Brits to take a short break in the UK this autumn and winter. You can download the campaign toolkit here.
Reopening safely
Use this guidance to help you carry out a risk assessment and make sensible adjustments to the site and workforce. And this sector-specific guidance to make your workplace Covid-secure.
Reporting an outbreak
Public Health England has created a folder of downloadable resources specifically for tourist attractions, holiday resorts and events. These are for displaying in staff areas, and explain the steps that must be taken in the event of an outbreak.
Operating in a local outbreak
On 7 August the government issued guidance for people holidaying in an area with local restrictions, or travelling from an area with local restrictions to go on holiday elsewhere. They also updated the advice for accommodation providers to include guidance on local restrictions (section 2.5).
We're Good to Go
We urge all of our members to apply for the new industry standard: We're Good to Go. Members who have already been certified are listed here. The mark is free to apply for, and takes the form of an online questionnaire.
Training and webinars
Visit Britain are running a second series of Business Recovery Webinars throughout the autumn, covering topics from content creation to using Google Digital Garage.
Case studies
One of the silver linings of the past few months has been our members coming together and getting to know each other better. Thank you to everyone who let us interview them about reopening – read the case studies here. We've also pulled together our top five tips for communicating with customers during this period.
Other grants
National Lottery Project Grants – £1,000 to £100,000, closes April 2021
Culture Recovery Fund Repayable Finance – loans of over £3m, dates TBC
Health & Safety Fund for Cinemas – up to £10,000, closes 30 October
Business Sustainability Grant for Cinemas – up to £200,000, closes 30 October
Local support
1066 Country spans three local councils. Here are the links to their business information pages: Hastings, Rother and Wealden.
At county level, Business East Sussex is providing business recovery advice, a daily update, finance information and webinars.
