Credit: Casino 2000
In an interview with Chronicle.lu, Guido Berghmans, General Director of Casino 2000, shared how the entertainment venue has been impacted by and adapted to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as his hopes and expectations for 2022.
Chronicle.lu: How long was Casino 2000 shut for during the pandemic? How was event organisation affected?
Guido Berghmans: The casino was closed for a total of 120 days due to the pandemic. But that was significantly shorter than for most other casinos in Europe, some of which had to close for over 200 days in 2020 and 2021.
In addition, there were restrictions due to the curfew at 21:00 or 23:00 and later at midnight. Also the number of guests was limited for some time, the borders to the neighbour countries closed, etc.
Our restaurants were, however, closed for much longer and we were not able to hold any events during this time.
All in all, as for everyone else, not an easy time.
Chronicle.lu: Did the Luxembourg government support staff financially? If so, how?
Guido Berghmans: State aid has indeed helped a lot. Very pragmatically and quickly, the salaries of employees who could not be deployed were taken over and the company was also compensated for certain losses.
Chronicle.lu: Was Casino 2000 able to retain staff?
Guido Berghmans: We were in the fortunate situation that we did not have to lay off any staff. And for the future, we rather expect that we will need more staff again once the pandemic is over.
Most of the people who work here are experienced experts who cannot be replaced so easily. We are glad that they are available to us, because we expect to be very busy again soon.
Chronicle.lu: Did Casino 2000 have to bring in new staff and / or provide additional training to existing staff in response to the COVID-19 measures?
Guido Berghmans: We have been able to use staff from our restaurants to help for a number of tasks related to the implementation of the COVID measures. The croupiers and dealers who normally work at the gaming tables were also used for these controls.
All these people were indeed prepared and trained for the new tasks. We were also able to discover some talents in the process, of whom we did not know, for example, that they have excellent contact with guests.
Chronicle.lu: In what way will / have the newest government measures affect Casino 2000?
Guido Berghmans: We, like everyone else, did not expect that there would be new restrictions. As a result, all events were postponed and we are again applying strict COVID procedures. This affects clearly our business, but we have no choice. Of course, we understand the sense of the new regulation and support it.
Chronicle.lu: What are Casino 2000's hopes and vision for 2022?
Guido Berghmans: We are very optimistic and assume that people have a backlog for all the things that they couldn't do during the pandemic.
We have a very large number of attractive events planned for the next eighteen months. We have also used the pandemic to modernise the company. Major renovations will also be carried out this year. In reality, COVID has accelerated the development of the company enormously. We would not have been able to adapt so quickly to future trends and expectations under normal circumstances.
In any case, we have a lot of things planned for this year and are confident that our guests will enjoy taking advantage of them.
