If we do not save our hospitality and tourism sectors a vital part of Yorkshire will be lost forever - Mark Casci

With neologisms such as ‘social distancing’, ‘clap for carers’ and ‘self isolating’ having become part of our lexicon, all of us are recalibrating our approach to life.

And, of course, our deep-seated English sensibilities have led to alterations in the way we speak.

It is obligatory that every email begins and ends with well-intentioned sentiments expressing hope that we are ‘staying safe’.

And, increasingly, all phone calls must now end with ‘it will be lovely to meet up for a drink when all of this is over’.

This notion that we will before long be able to meet our friends and colleagues in pubs, restaurants and coffee shops is, however, now looking increasingly like a seriously long-term proposition.

While measures to relax the lockdown are likely to be spelt out in the coming days they will only apply to certain industries.

Factories, offices and laboratories are able to adapt to incorporate social distancing measures.

Indeed many are already doing so, often using great ingenuity in the process.

However for sectors such as entertainment, tourism and leisure the challenges are far more severe.

It is increasingly clear that social distancing measures are here to stay for many months.

With testing is still at abysmally low levels and a vaccine unlikely to be available for at least a year, businesses whose whole foundation lies in bringing people together to enjoy themselves are left with nowhere to turn.

No business is immune from this crisis, I know.

But it is all to easy to dismiss the hospitality and tourism industries crucial importance to both our economy and our very identity as a nation.

The British pub is an internationally recognised institution and often at the heart of community life.

Our restaurants are venues we associate with celebration, places where families and friends gather to mark happy occasions and salute our success.

And the annual family holiday is an occasion which live in all of our hearts and minds for life.

Currently, all of these matters are on pause.

One of the manifold tragedies of the crisis is that it is not just claiming lives, it is restricting the very essence of what life is.

And, as our majestic NHS battles to save lives so must we battle to save the essence of life and the businesses that provide this.

This weekend The Yorkshire Post ran a story on Leeds bar and restaurant owners calling for a nine-month pause in rent payments for the hospitality sector. The Hospitality Union’s #NationalTimeOut initiative has been put to the attention of both the Chancellor and Business Secretary with the warning that if rent payments are continued to be charged to the sector is will “collapse like a house of cards”.

Research shows that if the lockdown continues for three months, as many as 30 per cent of tourism businesses are likely to permanently close. One in three, gone forever. While the

London-based media continues to obsess over the likes of Richard Branson we are more concerned with the North Yorkshire B&B, the West Yorkshire local pub and the South Yorkshire-based family-run restaurant.

When you take these away it destroys communities and livelihoods.

And then, of course, you have our concert venues and theatres, the stages of which are dramatically empty.

The vital need to safeguard these crucial sectors could not be more acute. Rishi Sunak famously pledged to do ‘whatever it takes’ to support the economy.

I submit that we as a region should do likewise to support our leisure industries, both now and in the future.

These areas may not be the corporate titans so often featured in our pages but they are as important to Yorkshire’s society and economy.

Perhaps the ‘New Normal’ needs to see these sectors being given the respect they most assuredly deserve.