According to a release by Tallink, this is due to a significant drop in guest numbers and bookings for the near future as a result of new travel restrictions in place in Latvia and neighboring countries.
According to current plans, operations of the hotel will be suspended until spring 2021. However, should the virus situation improve earlier, this decision will be reviewed.
While the hotel operations are suspended, the services of the hotel will be updated to meet all the new safety requirements and the downtime will be used to develop greener and more sustainable accommodation services for the future.
Ave Svarts, Management Board Member of Tallink Hotels, said:
"With hotel occupancy levels in all hotels being below optimum occupancy levels for several months now and travel restrictions due to increasing infection rates once again in place and preventing travel, it is impossible to keep the operations running without incurring losses every day we are open for business.
So, instead, we have decided to suspend our activities temporarily and wait for the storm to pass. We have already had to let the majority of our staff go through collective redundancies and will now need to shut down and conserve as much as possible for the months ahead, so that we may survive this time of disruption and restart our operations as soon as the pandemic situation allows us to do so.
Those staff members remaining in the business, will spend the next few months re-imagining and re-focusing our offering for the post-COVID world we will be faced with in 2021 and will look and develop new concepts, ideas, services for the post-COVID traveller. We want to be fresh, safe and ready for the new world as soon as the borders in the new world re-open and travelling resumes."
Out of the four hotels Tallink Hotels operates, two will currently still remain open – the Tallink Spa & Conference Hotel and the Tallink Express Hotel in Tallinn. The company’s fourth hotel, the Tallink City Hotel in Tallinn, shut its doors for major refurbishment already this summer and will reopen after the revamp in spring 2021.
