Non-veg food disappearing from wedding menus as industry faces COVID-19 tremors
As reports of more positive Coronavirus cases emerge from different various parts of India including - Rajasthan, Telangana and Delhi-NCR- the impact is also seen on the business sector. COVID-19 a deadly new strain of coronavirus has begun impacting India in more ways than one. The government and the health agencies have already sprung in action to contain the spread of the virus. On the business front, India Inc and the stock market have also started showing the ripple effect.
Coronavirus has also started showing impact in the wedding industry in India. Indian weddings are known for their grand celebrations. Needless to say the wedding celebrations support many small scale businesses such as floral artists, music artists, food caterers, decoration artists.
In metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai, businesses have now started to experience the impact of coronavirus in their day-to-day functioning.
"People are taking steps to avoid any exposure to coronavirus. There has been a cancellation of Non-Vegetarian food from menus of weddings on a large scale," Akash Banerjee, the Artist Manager at Big Bad Wolf, told IndiaTV.
Referring to a wedding at a venue in South Delhi, Banerjee said that non-vegetarian food was removed from the menu as late as one day prior to the wedding. "All this is being done due to the growing concern of coronavirus amongst people in India," Banerjee added. According to the WHO figures received at the time of writing this report, the global death rate due to Coronavirus stood at 3.4 per cent. This is significantly higher compared to any other flu.
Coronavirus Impact: Many popular wedding locations out of bound
Akash, who has been in this field for the last 5 years, spoke at length of the impact of this growing epidemic on the industry. He said that some of the locations which were quite popular amongst people getting married in India have now become out of bounds. He also added that despite loss in business, they advise their clients to not do any events at these locations.
"Locations like Bangkok and Thailand, in general, were very popular amongst Indians as places to get married. Especially because the expenditure of a wedding there is quite similar to that of India. This is, however, no longer the case since the coronavirus outbreak. We advise our clients to not look at such places to keep any functions," Banerjee added. Visas to many countries have also been cancelled.
He also said that the company is now avoiding airlines that operate in the Asian belt altogether. "If we have to call an international artist at a wedding, we avoid airlines that use the Asian belt that includes China, South Korea, Japan amongst other countries. We make sure that the airlines are using connective routes from areas that are not infected or are relatively safer. Suppose a trip needs to be booked from Los Angeles, the USA to New Delhi, we only resort to airlines that have connecting flights from London or Frankfurt and not those who connect via Seoul or Tokyo," Banerjee signed off with.
India has seen a growing influence of coronavirus in the last few days with 28 infected including 16 Italian citizens. The government is taking steps to contain the virus. Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan, on Tuesday, told India TV that the government is fully prepared to face the coronavirus threat and that the citizens need not panic at all.
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