Pass the bank holiday test

FOR once the bank holiday planets were pretty well aligned. The weather couldn’t have been finer, the traffic moderate (apart from the inevitable daily delays on the M5) and the country in a reasonably buoyant frame of mind, the BBC’s appallingly drear coverage of the Chelsea Flower Show having ended.

- Chris Rundle

So the weekend would have provided a useful measuring stick to assess the chances of the South West's tourism sector getting through the summer without suffering serious meltdown.

Would higher fuel prices deter too many tourists or would the region's attractions outweigh the extra cost? Would the promised sunshine turn out to be a strong enough incentive for those plans for a quick flit to the Mediterranean sunshine to be shelved?

And, more importantly, how would things fare in the all-important restaurant and hospitality sector which has been particularly under the cosh recently, not the least as a result of the Chancellor's decision to stuff up National Insurance contributions at a time when soaring energy and employment costs have already put hundreds of establishments’ budgets under severe stress.

I like too, to think that the early bank holidays, provide something of a litmus test for all those who have so blithely and optimistically launched themselves into the catering sector over the winter, buoyed by high hopes and the best wishes of friends.

Because there’s nothing like a bank holiday to test the resilience of an eatery in the tourism sector. Assuming, of course, that the punters turn up at all - which last weekend they certainly were.

I often wonder at the mentality of people who plunge into catering while totally prepared for the ordeal they are about to face; the equivalent of diving into a storm-tossed sea with no lifejacket to keep one afloat.

You've probably seen them as often as I have: the MasterChef contestants who state their ambition to open a little seaside restaurant serving local food and good wine, as though the experience will be one long party for them as they sit on a bar stool counting the takings as a willing staff scurries around serving tables and the unbooked queue hopefully at the door.