Effect of Social Impacts of Covid-19 on Serena Lake Kivu Hotel’s Employee

The study on the effect of Covid 19 pandemic in the hospitality industry was conducted in Rwanda with Lake Kivu Serena Hotel. The research was carried out to examine the social impact that Covid-19 has on Serena Lake Kivu Hotel’s employee. The theoretical framework evolved around successful managing crisis situations using Turnaround model conceptualizations authored by Smith and Sipika. The research findings focused on the social impacts that Covid-19 had on Serena Lake Kivu Hotel’s employee includes job losses, mandate social distancing, financial & emotional stress, and sense of isolation (travel restrictions) which leads to a depressive state and the responses Serena Lake Kivu Hotel can implement in order to combat the impact Covid-19 are outlined by the Government of Rwanda while they developed theirs and changes introduced by the management of the hotel includes informing their shareholders that they would not be paying dividend of 2019 in order to help cost reduction of the hotel, Employees reduction, focusing more on the domestic market as the border remain closed and working closely with RDB to receive international arrivals as a designated hotel. The researcher recommends, Lake Kivu Serena Hotel focuses more resources to harvest domestic tourists and to consider the external forces like Health crisis coupled with post-crisis turnarounds model to formulate the crisis management policies and the formation of crisis management teams.

Keywords: Covid-19, Pandemic, and Employees