Businesses centering on weddings may not be able to survive another Covid-19 wave
A worker gives finishing touches to the decorations of the gate at a wedding venue in Dhaka on Thursday Mahmud Hossain Opu/Dhaka Tribune
Najifa Farhat
Publish : 20 Jan 2022, 11:52 PMUpdate : 21 Jan 2022, 12:42 AM
Shohag was sitting on a footpath at Kataban in the capital, stringing together marigolds. An order was due that evening for a “gaye holud” program.
“The business has been good. We get at least 4-10 orders for decorative accessories for different programs every day,” said the 13-year-old.
The teenager, who feeds his family of five with his modest income, had been forced to leave the city in early 2021 after his employer, Sheuli Decorative Store, let him go.
Shohag now fears the same will happen once again with the looming threat of another lockdown following the emergence of the Omicron variant.
“My employer called me back a few months ago. The business is good, but I hear there may be another lockdown on the way. I am scared of losing my job again,” he said.
Winter, typically from October to February, is considered the season of festivals in Bangladesh, especially weddings.
During the last two years with the virus, almost all scales of outdoor weddings had vanished from the scene. With an improvement in the pandemic situation last year, industry stakeholders had been hoping to compensate for the losses incurred. However, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has only been a bad omen for the already damaged industry.
Still recovering
Dhaka Tribune recently spoke to several stakeholders from flower shops, clothing stores, caterers and decorators. In general, everyone agreed that although businesses had not fully recovered, it had been going well since the lifting of the last lockdown.
But they said they were worried about rumours of a new lockdown, which would devastate the industry if imposed during the peak season.
“Our clients have already started cancelling orders,” said Iqbal Hossain Bhulu, chairman of Iqbal Catering, a renowned caterer.
Iqbal said countless weddings had to be postponed during the last lockdown.
“As we mainly cater to large crowds, we could not do any business in the last wedding season. We were hopeful about this one but as our clientele belongs to the educated and affluent segment of society, they have already started cancelling bookings,” he added.
Md Jahangir Alam, manager of Emmanuelle’s Convention Centre, said the centre had stopped taking large bookings as the government had announced new pandemic measures.
“Our venues remained almost empty throughout 2021, save for December. We are nearly booked for January but are afraid our clients may start cancelling soon in light of Omicron concerns,” he said.
Besides the pandemic, the skyrocketing prices of daily commodities, especially food, are one of the key reasons behind losses for these businesses.
“The market has been on fire for the last few months and prices have increased for every ingredient from chicken to spices. We have not been able to raise our fees in accordance with market prices, which has turned out to be a massive drawback for our recovery,” said Jahangir.
Rough going for event management companies
Event Management Marketing Association of Bangladesh (EMMAB) General Secretary Doza Alan said around 100-150 event management companies had to shut down operations for good in the first year of the pandemic.
“Even after the lockdown was lifted, the government took some time for crowded open-air events to be organised. Every business has tried to shift online amid Covid-19, but our operations are solely based on gatherings. Our clients—both public and corporate—have started cancelling bookings as they are not interested in holding events at half capacity.”
Branching out
“There is no doubt that lockdown measures hurt our business very badly, but we have managed to branch out into services like corporate shooting, small and indoor events, etc,” said Sabbir Arafat, founder and chief photographer of Snaps Art, as he explained how his company had diversified its services to survive the pandemic.
“After the lockdown, I started receiving a good number of bookings for wedding photography so I would say the number of events has gone up, but now people are more interested in having small, homely programs. So overall the profit margin was hurt,” he added.
Catering services also started thinking differently due to the restrictions on public events.
“The moment we realized the situation would remain the same for some time, we started diversifying our services. We started providing catering through online delivery via a venture called Buy Here Now, which has been a great success for us. We kept serving small events, even a crowd of 10 people,” said Ragib Yaser Rahi, operations manager of Alpha Catering.
“Our events were not limited to weddings only. We launched our own food product line, offered midnight delivery, and our corporate clients were loyal enough to avail of our services,” he added.
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Omicron threatens wounded wedding industry’s recovery hopes
Businesses centering on weddings may not be able to survive another Covid-19 wave
Shohag was sitting on a footpath at Kataban in the capital, stringing together marigolds. An order was due that evening for a “gaye holud” program.
“The business has been good. We get at least 4-10 orders for decorative accessories for different programs every day,” said the 13-year-old.
The teenager, who feeds his family of five with his modest income, had been forced to leave the city in early 2021 after his employer, Sheuli Decorative Store, let him go.
Shohag now fears the same will happen once again with the looming threat of another lockdown following the emergence of the Omicron variant.
“My employer called me back a few months ago. The business is good, but I hear there may be another lockdown on the way. I am scared of losing my job again,” he said.
Winter, typically from October to February, is considered the season of festivals in Bangladesh, especially weddings.
During the last two years with the virus, almost all scales of outdoor weddings had vanished from the scene. With an improvement in the pandemic situation last year, industry stakeholders had been hoping to compensate for the losses incurred. However, the Omicron variant of the coronavirus has only been a bad omen for the already damaged industry.
Still recovering
Dhaka Tribune recently spoke to several stakeholders from flower shops, clothing stores, caterers and decorators. In general, everyone agreed that although businesses had not fully recovered, it had been going well since the lifting of the last lockdown.
But they said they were worried about rumours of a new lockdown, which would devastate the industry if imposed during the peak season.
“Our clients have already started cancelling orders,” said Iqbal Hossain Bhulu, chairman of Iqbal Catering, a renowned caterer.
Iqbal said countless weddings had to be postponed during the last lockdown.
“As we mainly cater to large crowds, we could not do any business in the last wedding season. We were hopeful about this one but as our clientele belongs to the educated and affluent segment of society, they have already started cancelling bookings,” he added.
Md Jahangir Alam, manager of Emmanuelle’s Convention Centre, said the centre had stopped taking large bookings as the government had announced new pandemic measures.
“Our venues remained almost empty throughout 2021, save for December. We are nearly booked for January but are afraid our clients may start cancelling soon in light of Omicron concerns,” he said.
Besides the pandemic, the skyrocketing prices of daily commodities, especially food, are one of the key reasons behind losses for these businesses.
“The market has been on fire for the last few months and prices have increased for every ingredient from chicken to spices. We have not been able to raise our fees in accordance with market prices, which has turned out to be a massive drawback for our recovery,” said Jahangir.
Rough going for event management companies
Event Management Marketing Association of Bangladesh (EMMAB) General Secretary Doza Alan said around 100-150 event management companies had to shut down operations for good in the first year of the pandemic.
“Even after the lockdown was lifted, the government took some time for crowded open-air events to be organised. Every business has tried to shift online amid Covid-19, but our operations are solely based on gatherings. Our clients—both public and corporate—have started cancelling bookings as they are not interested in holding events at half capacity.”
Branching out
“There is no doubt that lockdown measures hurt our business very badly, but we have managed to branch out into services like corporate shooting, small and indoor events, etc,” said Sabbir Arafat, founder and chief photographer of Snaps Art, as he explained how his company had diversified its services to survive the pandemic.
“After the lockdown, I started receiving a good number of bookings for wedding photography so I would say the number of events has gone up, but now people are more interested in having small, homely programs. So overall the profit margin was hurt,” he added.
Catering services also started thinking differently due to the restrictions on public events.
“The moment we realized the situation would remain the same for some time, we started diversifying our services. We started providing catering through online delivery via a venture called Buy Here Now, which has been a great success for us. We kept serving small events, even a crowd of 10 people,” said Ragib Yaser Rahi, operations manager of Alpha Catering.
“Our events were not limited to weddings only. We launched our own food product line, offered midnight delivery, and our corporate clients were loyal enough to avail of our services,” he added.