COVID-19 is currently being the most popular topic worldwide discussed on any media due to

its criticalness and pandemic status. A study concludes that Indonesia has the second most rapid
rate of dispersion amongst other Southeast Asian countries (Pusparisa, 2020). Its impact falls
into several aspects including the operation of businesses, to the best of the observer’s
knowledge. The common understanding is that in a presumably lockdown situation where most
people stay at home to self-quarantine, businesses running in several industries including food
and beverages and tourism would not be capable to operate maximum enough supposing it
achieves profit as per usually in normal situations.

According to an interview with a business owner of a food and beverage industry that the
observer has conducted, he admitted that his business in Jakarta were affected substantially in
many aspects including a decrease in sales and profit. However, another business owner in
Jakarta with the same industry proclaimed that in terms of sales, his business hasn’t had any
significant changes to the extent of they still meet their daily sales target, even beyond. This
contradictive result has many possible causes. First is that the market bases of each business
which should be understood. The first business is a café-restaurant which targets customers to
stay and hangout in the location, whilst the second is a restaurant that its space is not intended for
customers to stay for a long time. The second one would be able to perform better since it
doesn’t require people to go to the location and thus the revenue comes from delivery orders.
Moreover, the first business is obliged to pay their fixed cost such as rent expense, employees’
salaries and wages, and many more. In addition, the environment around the location also affects
the sales. For instance, a restaurant located amidst an office complex has a tendency to gain
customers from orders by offices’ employees. Thus, it would less likely to reach a desirable
revenue due to the work-from-home (WFH) situation.1

For the tourism industry, the observer took a case of one of the biggest startup companies in
Indonesia. An interview by the observer has been conducted with one of the employees working
on the flight and hotel section. He confirmed that the sales has been notably decreasing for about
20-50% since the early days of COVID-19 emergence. The company even now has a segment
for their employees to work solely on the refund, reschedule, and cancellation of customers’
bookings due to COVID-19. These cancellation actions by customers were done furthermore due
to the additional policies released by the Minister of Foreign Affairs.2

In conclusion, COVID-19 indeed affected how a business operates, especially in food and
beverages and tourism enterprises. However, the impacts vary from a significant to just a
reasonable amount of changes, depends on the market bases and the location of the business.
Tourism enterprises would suffer their toughest times during the emergence of COVID-19.
Nevertheless, should the viruses be disappeared in a few more months, the observer believes
these businesses’ operations will be back to normal.