The Old Coastguard - The Gurnard's Head - The Felin Fach Griffin

Last year’s slings seem to have been followed by 2020’s more significant arrows. Re-opening The Old Coastguard after its 2019 fire was due on 20 March. The Government (thankfully) closed down hospitality on …. 20 March. But we’re learning that perspective is important and these past weeks have meant different things to different people, many of which are way more serious than the challenge that faces us.

Some ideas on what a release from lockdown could look like are due in the next few days. We hope they will be sensitive to local communities but also recognise what businesses need in order to decide to open their doors. For the moment, we have no clue on the outcome so thought it a good moment to remind you we are here without any need to push you on dates, offers or events. We wish every one of you the very best.

EXISTING BOOKINGS

We’ve taken the view that there isn’t a lot of point in speculating about the future. The When? What? Where? is mostly guesswork, so we’re holding back from any kind of crystal ball gazing. If you’ve a room booking with us still in place, we’re emailing you about 4 weeks ahead to cancel (if you haven’t already) as that’s our current horizon.

If you’d like to move a booking to the Autumn, we’re very happy to pencil it in and can confirm details later when we know more. Generally, we’re not taking bookings for stays before 1 September until we have the feeling we should. But there’s no harm in pencilling something in for you if you’d really like a summer holiday backup.

VOUCHERS & CANCELLATIONS

Many of you are kind enough to buy Gift Vouchers for friends or family. Or will have been given them yourselves. All you need to know now is that any voucher bought from us before the shut down will be usable whenever you like. Ignore the expiry date, we’ve never really enforced them anyway.

Of course we waived all cancellation fees when our world changed in March. And we don’t have a policy to take deposits so there was no question of encouraging guests to move their bookings down the line. If you feel you need to cancel a booking in June, July, August or beyond, just drop us an email.

OUR TEAMS

As the lights went out on that Friday, the thoughts of most people in our position turned to their team. How could we possibly pay them for weeks and months? The Furlough scheme was extraordinary, in both its breadth of vision and implementation. Whatever its macroeconomic significance, it really did save millions of jobs, thousands of businesses and several nights’ sleep.

Very few of you don’t recognise the work done by individuals in our teams when you stay or eat with us. What we’d like you to know now is that all are still employed by us, we’re in contact with them regularly and most (we think!) are looking forward to coming back to work at some stage.

THE LOCAL ECONOMY

We think of the hospitality industry as the tip of the iceberg, particularly in rural areas such as ours. A myriad of supplIers, tradesmen, freelancers, artists depend on places like us for their existence. So when the revenue tap is turned off at the consumer end, there is a limit to what can flow through to suppliers. We keep encouraging our politicians to understand the threat to rural economies from this awful financial stasis. In the meantime, we’d like to thank all of our suppliers and tradesmen for being so extraordinarily supportive at a time when it is difficult for us to match their approach.

FINALLY

We will drop you an email when we can say with any confidence that we will be open again, whether in Wales or Cornwall. If you’ve received this email, you are probably on our database. If you are not, or if you would like to help us come back to life more rapidly by recommending us to someone else, please do sign up to Become a Friend of EDS here.

THE OLD COASTGUARD
For Mousehole & The Minack
(01736) 731 222

THE GURNARD'S HEAD
For St. Ives & Zennor
(01736) 796 928

THE FELIN FACH GRIFFIN
For Brecon & Hay-On-Wye
(01874) 620 111