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A recent poll shows Kamloops businesses face a number of obstacles when it comes to restarting under B.C.’s Phase 2 plan.
According to the third ‘Pulse Check’ survey from the BC Chamber of Commerce, local respondents identified five big challenges. The first is attracting customers and revenue (60%).
“We don’t know at what pace customers are going to return to our businesses,” Kelowna Chamber of Commerce president Tyson Andrykew said. “Are they going to be going to restaurants as much as they used to? Are they going to be staying in hotels as much as they used to? Do they still have the same disposable income or cash on hand? And do they feel safe to be in those businesses?
“It’s a lot of uncertainty. The one thing that government can’t shed light on … is consumer confidence. That’s going to ultimately be the will of the people and the will of the customer.”
Other challenges identified include having enough operating cash for other expenses, like wages and rent (51%); bringing staff back to the workplace, with considerations like unavailable child care (49%); being unprepared or unable to meet safety standards and requirements (32%); and having enough money to implement safety standards (32%).
More than 1,300 businesses across the province participated in the survey. Of those, 100 were from the Kamloops area.
“One of the interesting things … as I dug into the results further is … only 44 per cent (of Kamloops businesses) said that they were accessing the wage subsidy, which I was a little surprised to find,” Adrykey said.
He noted that piece of data brings up questions of whether businesses are applying for the subsidy. If they aren’t, why not? If they are, why are they not meeting the requirements? That’s something Adrykey hopes to look into further.
“That’s an interesting takeaway (from the survey) that gives our team at the chamber an opportunity to go to the membership with, with a bit of a task at hand, to figure out why that number was so low.”
Meanwhile, more than half of the questionnaire respondents said it will take two months or more to restart their business.
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