Riu Hotels & Resorts is a Spanish hotel chain founded by the Riu family in 1953. It was founded in Mallorca, Spain, and is currently 49% owned by TUI and run by the third generation of the family. Their 99 all-inclusive hotels and resorts can be found in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia, but they were all closed in March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The first two Riu resorts to reopen are the 357-room Riu Plaza Berlin and the 550-room Riu Plaza Guadalajara. Those are happening on Monday, May 25th. Both properties will open with multiple coronavirus-related safety procedures in place, including lowered occupancy rates, guest temperature screenings, personal protective equipment usage among employees, social distancing and the removal of all nonessential items (i.e., coffee machines, magazines, leaflets and laundry bags) in guestrooms.
While buffets appear to be phasing out in this new post-COVID age, Riu intends to keep theirs, saying they are a part of their all-inclusive packages and are highly valued by their customers. However, multiple safety precautions will be in place, including:
Lunch and dinner sittings will be arranged, the restaurants’ seating capacity will be reduced and it will be compulsory to disinfect your hands on entry. All guests must wear gloves and mask to go to the buffet, which will now contain more individual portions, more packaged products and more live cooking. An even stricter routine will be implemented to monitor temperatures and change serving utensils, as well as staff distancing and hygiene measures. The tables will be covered with single-use tablecloths, the cutlery will be provided at the tables and the seats will be assigned respecting safe distances and avoiding transit areas, among other measures.
Our take on it
“Highly valued” or not, it seems awfully brave to offer a buffet in the early days of the “new normal.” Granted, mandatory hand disinfecting before entering, as well as glove and mask use will help. But all you need is that first cough, especially while coronavirus is still major a problem all over the world (including Mexico and Germany), and I suspect it won’t go over well (Is it allergies? Is it a cold? DO THEY HAVE THE VIRUS?!?!?!?!).
But I guess you have to start somewhere.
If nothing else, I suppose hotels and restaurants from around the world will be watching to see what, if anything, will come of it.
#stayhealthy #staysafe #washyourhands
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This post first appeared on Your Mileage May Vary
5 comments
I’ve stayed at a Rio before and the Buffett was ghetto.
LOL! In looking for an appropriate feature photo for this post, I saw a LOT of pics of Riu buffets. They all looked perfect. But in looking at guests’ photos, not so much. Based on that, I’ll go with your assessment 😉
The forgone conclusion that buffets were going extinct was based on the warnings that COVID could spread via infected surfaces. However, this past week, the CDC changed their guidance to say that contaminated surfaced shouldn’t be a particular concern.
With that now being the case, buffets are no more of a risk than any other public place in a hotel. In fact, I imagine the typical self-serve model (with masks and distancing) is *lower* risk than having a server plate the food for you at the buffet, which was the strategy used as a stop-gap prior to the shutdowns.
A buffet in itself isn’t a bad idea as long as you have sneeze guards and food is either pre-plated or served by staff. Basically lunch in junior high.
The glove idea is just terrible. Glove use has a couple of serious problems according to my health inspector: gloves provide a false sense of security and they keep people from washing their hands. I hadn’t thought about it but it really makes sense when you think about it.
Gloves are useless in terms of COVID-19. It’s not spread by skin.