Bulgarian Hotel- and Restaurant-Keepers Lash out at Vaccination Stickers

The Bulgarian Hotel and Restaurant Association (BHRA) has lashed out at the stickers certifying that 100 per cent of the staff have been vaccinated against Covid-19 which are to be placed on hotels and qualified them as "discriminatory" and likely to create a number of problems for the industry.

A statement by the BHRA quoted its deputy head, Vesselin Nalbantov, as saying that the pressure to immunise employees "at any cost" led to an outflow of staff.

He said that immunisation should be voluntary and take into account individual health needs and characteristics, rather than "coercive and violent methods" such as public or corporate pressure.

"There are people who cannot be vaccinated for health reasons and those who have already been ill and have enough antibodies and therefore do not want to be immunised immediately," Nalbantov said.

He said that with the business already in a complex situation, the very short summer holiday season, the fact that hoteliers were the only tourism industry that had got no help from the state, the pressure of "100 per cent vaccinated" stickers could be the last straw.

BHRA head Georgi Shterev said that colleagues were complaining that, amid the difficulty in finding staff for a short season, even their few employees were refusing to come to work "for fear of being vaccinated compulsorily" which for various reasons they did not want.

Shterev reiterated the association's position that there should be priority vaccination for those employed in tourism, but taking into account the individual health characteristics of employees in the sector.

Listing objections to the "100 per cent vaccinated" stickers, he said that affixing them to only some hotels led to the presumption that those that...

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