Many of our past kiwi guests will by now be aware that Le Petit Hotel is no more, but the hotel phone still reminds us occasionally that both Martine & I are now in a different place and time. We haven’t moved far though; just next door to the building that performed so well for us since 2004. However it is important at this point to note that we have no connection with any business that is now carried on at the address.
Most of my previous post conceived back in April 2020 is still relevant today and is reposted here below; however we sadly note the passing of our dearly beloved Kara, who had been battling cancer for quite some time. The gap in both mine & Martine’s lives is immeasurable. She is missed terribly.
In a previous post, titled The Changing Face of Hospitality, I never would have considered a future post about Life’s Twists and Turns, and certainly the thought never occurred to me, that a global pandemic, (Covid 19) would rip the heart out of New Zealand’s finely tuned tourism industry, have us all baled up inside our residences out of fear for an extremely contagious virus, that had spun out of China around November/December 2019. The Government’s lock-up/stay-in /wash hands strategy for fighting this virus has given us all, loads of time to pause and consider the meaning of life. It’s also shown the global family on planet Earth that despite all the money( phoney stuff included) in the world today, and all the technology that is able to be applied to our environment, a protein coated molecule was capable of totally disrupting everything that humans have come to regard as secure, and all but stop the planet from spinning.
For us here at Le Petit Hotel, Sumner, NZ, the negative effect on business has been swift , dramatic, and like all the other hospitality operators everywhere on the planet, there is no escape from the fallout of seeing no travellers either domestic or international. The grounding of almost all commercial aircraft has made sure of that, and combined with countries establishing strict quarantining at their borders, life has been changed significantly at least for the medium term. However, it would be true to say that things won’t be quite like they used to be, following this particular global pandemic. The true scale of the economic fallout for everyone is yet be be revealed.
In all of this, both Martine & I have had Kara , our “newly sighted” Sottish Terrier, to care for, following her successful cataract operation by Steve Heap here in Christchurch. To say that dogs can and do become part of the family is an undeniable truism and Kara is doing her bit to keep us both sane during our personal period of Covid 19 isolation in Le Petit Hotel.
