Newcastle's COVID outbreak has all but ruined Christmas for the city's hospitality industry with venue operators reeling from what in some cases has been a 90 per cent drop in trade.
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In what is usually the best week of the year - the week before Christmas - many hospitality venues resembled ghost towns.
While some had already closed last week because of the outbreak's impact on staff numbers, those that remained open were crippled by cancellations.
One pub, Carrington's Young Street Hotel, had bookings for a combined 880 people cancelled.
Owner Luke Tilse, whose other venue The Happy Wombat was already closed because of staff shortages, said by Sunday night revenue at the Carrington business was 90 per cent down on the week prior, which itself had delivered the best trade of the lockdown-struck year.
"It's devastating," he said on Monday. Mr Tilse had questioned in a passionate post on the pub's Facebook page late Sunday whether the "correct structures" had been put in place for the "new 'living with COVID' world".
"Honestly, this cannot be the way that we move forward ... there is no guaranteeing this won't happen again in a month, two months, a year?
"They need to change the structure of how they deal with this today, before more pain is heaped on businesses that have jumped every hurdle thrown in front of them up until this point."
Business Hunter CEO Bob Hawes said while the difficulties were most evident in hospitality, the outbreak had now caused problems across an array of industries.
"It is impacting service businesses, manufacturing," he said.
"We are aware that some businesses who don't want to close have been given no choice because they are losing key personnel.
"It's something we avoided with previous breakouts in Sydney and the like, we dodged a bullet, but this time we are the centre of the target."
Mr Hawes said "this week would be telling" for retail with foot traffic down in stores over the past week.
He said some traders were experiencing online sales growth but there was a concern that a large shift to shopping online would impact local business as consumers opt for larger retailers.
The outbreak has also hit tourism with some accommodation providers receiving cancellations and inbound airport passenger numbers lower than expected.
"While inbound passenger numbers have softened a little over the past week, the outbound numbers are still strong. No flights gave been cancelled that we're aware of," Newcastle Airport CEO Dr Peter Cock said.
Will Creedon, managing director of holiday-property management company Alloggio, said cancellations had started to flow in the past few days, primarily for hotel rooms in Newcastle, but there was still demand coming in to replace them.
"Demand is not very strong but there is very little supply, so it means we can easily slot them in," he said.
Mr Creedon said businesses being closed was "hurting the travel experience" for those still visiting the city.
"The big thing we're starting to take calls on is where to eat and drink because places are closed," he said. "If the businesses don't have the staff, they don't have the staff - that's not their fault.
"But what's also happening is people are afraid to go out, they don't want to catch COVID and miss Christmas with their family, so they're staying at home. From an active retail perspective, that's having a massive impact."
Newcastle state MP Tim Crakanthorp said the NSW government's plan for opening up the economy had "completely backfired".
"Newcastle has been a guinea pig for opening up the economy, and it's very quickly turned out to be the test case for what governments should not do," he said.
"Both NSW Health and Hunter New England Health have recommended people postpone social gatherings and locals have embraced that advice.
"Health needs to be the priority, but local businesses cannot be left to take the financial hit each time there is a major outbreak."
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet backed his government's approach, saying it was "treating the people of our state like adults".
"It is a time of personal responsibility for our state," he said. "I completely accept that people are concerned.
"There will always be new variants of this virus. The pandemic is not going away. We need to learn to live alongside it."
John Green of the Australian Hotels Association said pubs were suffering from cancellations across NSW.
He believes the fear of catching COVID before Christmas has made people more reluctant to go out and trade levels will improve after the festive period, regardless of case numbers.
"Hopefully as we move forward people will be more confident, that with high vaccinations and low hospitalisations, we will learn to live with the virus," he said.
"The fear of missing Christmas has driven a lot of the responses."