{"id":118009,"date":"2021-01-10T16:22:19","date_gmt":"2021-01-10T14:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/hora-open-letter-addressed-to-the-government\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T14:32:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T12:32:18","slug":"hora-open-letter-addressed-to-the-government","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/hora-open-letter-addressed-to-the-government\/","title":{"rendered":"HORA: Open Letter Addressed to the Government"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hotel and restaurant owners are insisting on the immediate reopening of indoor dining spaces, with sanitary safety measures in place, and their removal from the 3 per 1,000 rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Government has established, at a national level, that in areas with an infection rate between 1.5 and 3 per 1,000, restaurants will be allowed to operate, but at 30% capacity and with limited hours. In areas with a rate exceeding 3 per 1,000, they must be closed. Activity is restricted to 50% where the infection rate is less than or equal to 1.5 per 1,000, with operating hours reduced until 11:00 PM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In an open letter addressed at the beginning of the year to the new Government\u2014specifically to the Prime Minister, the Minister of Health, and the Minister of Economy, Entrepreneurship, and Tourism\u2014HORA is once again requesting the immediate reopening of indoor restaurants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The letter specifies that, given the losses recorded by this sector and the risk of bankruptcy threatening more than half of the operators in the field, the following measures are requested as a matter of urgency:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>1. The urgent reopening of indoor restaurants, with the implementation of sanitary safety measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>2. The removal of restaurants from the 3\/1,000 threshold on the list of activities with a risk of spreading COVID-19, thereby allowing for uninterrupted operation with a set of measures previously agreed upon with industry representatives and respected by all operators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the letter sent to the Government, the employers&#8217; association requests the reopening of indoor restaurants considering the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>keeping 40,000 operators and 400,000 employees active;<\/li><li>estimates regarding business closures and unemployment in the industry are worrying in the current context;<\/li><li>avoiding a general collapse across the entire economic branch;<\/li><li>10,000 entrepreneurs will not reopen their businesses;<\/li><li>there are no peaks in the analyses regarding the number of COVID-infected persons that can be correlated with the closing\/reopening of restaurants;<\/li><li>strict compliance with the rules by operators during the restriction period;<\/li><li>lack of clarity regarding city populations (see Bucharest).<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>According to HORA, before the COVID-19 crisis, 40,000 companies with 100% Romanian capital were active in the HoReCa sector, with a turnover of 5 billion EUR, employing approximately 190,000 workers\u2014representing 10% of the total number of employees active in the private sector.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The restaurant employers&#8217; organization notes that HoReCa&#8217;s contribution to the Gross Domestic Product is approximately 5.07%, of which 3.42% is direct financial impact, 0.91% is social impact (employee salaries and consumption contribution), and 0.74% is indirect financial impact (suppliers and investments).<\/p>\n<h3>Frequently Asked Questions<\/h3><strong>What is HORA requesting from the Government in this open letter?<\/strong><p>HORA is requesting the immediate reopening of indoor dining spaces and the removal of restaurants from the 3 per 1,000 infection rate threshold.<\/p><strong>What is the economic impact of the HoReCa sector in Romania?<\/strong><p>The HoReCa sector contributes approximately 5.07% to the GDP and, prior to the crisis, provided jobs for 10% of all private sector employees.<\/p><strong>Why does HORA believe restaurants should be reopened?<\/strong><p>The association argues there is no proven correlation between restaurant operations and infection spikes, and the risk of bankruptcy for operators is imminent.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hotel and restaurant owners are insisting on the immediate reopening of indoor dining spaces, with sanitary safety measures in place, and their removal from the 3 per 1,000 rule. The Government has established, at a national level, that in areas with an infection rate between 1.5 and 3 per 1,000, restaurants will be allowed to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":69579,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2858],"tags":[4620,3367],"thb-sponsors":[],"class_list":["post-118009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tourism","tag-government","tag-time"],"article_style_override":"on","post-style":"style2","post_via":"","post-top-image":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/turism-2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118009\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118009"},{"taxonomy":"thb-sponsors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhn.ro\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/thb-sponsors?post=118009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}