"We need to think about a totally separate package for hotels and restaurants and the way of exiting this situation," Evalda Siskauskiene, head of the Lithuanian Association of Hotels and Restaurants, told a discussion on the coronavirus crisis' challenges to the country's health system and economy, held at the parliament on Thursday.
"Hotels and tourism operators will not recover for some eight months or a year, and they will recover once flights resume," Siskauskiene said, adding that only state assistance might save this segment and it could amount to at least the turnover of one month in 2019.
"Businesses could use that money to pay wages and utility bills, which might soon start accumulating as they make around 7 percent, as well as other tax payments, and the remaining amount would be left to keep keeping the business afloat," she said.
In her words, tourism and hotel businesses now employ around 54,000 people in Lithuania.