By Renee Wood
The Grand Hotel Healesville has gone viral after posting a graphic on social media stating, ‘Jab or no jab everyone is welcome at the Grand Hotel Healesville’.
The post received huge interest from Facebook users with 14,000 likes, over five thousand comments and more than three thousand shares.
Business owner Lisa McKay said she didn’t expect such a large response and the post was to highlight that the business wouldn’t ‘discriminate’ against customers for their personal choices.
“It certainly wasn’t an anti-vax post, it was just simply to say that we aren’t going to discriminate against people,” Ms McKay said.
“We believe that discrimination belongs in the past and certainly doesn’t belong in our future.”
The post was created after local residents visited the hotel to ask whether they would be accepting non-vaccinated customers.
Both positive and negative comments were expressed on social media, but Lisa said overall the response has been supportive.
“The phone did not stop ringing the days after it, people were ringing up and saying thank you, and just congratulating us, we only had one bad phone call.”
After the initial post, the hotel followed it with another on Facebook to clarify its stance on Covid-19 and vaccinations.
It read, ‘We just want to let you all know that we are not anti-vaxxers or non-covid believers. We believe in people making the right choice for them and we will not discriminate those, for whatever reason, who choose not to get the jab.
‘The post was simply to say that when we finally are able to open up, we won’t discriminate against anyone. If, however, the law changes and it becomes mandatory to enter a business with a passport, then we will have no choice and will abide by the law.’
Ms McKay said the business would abide by government restrictions to only serve vaccinated customers if they came into affect, but it would be difficult for hospitality businesses to staff the extra check in requirements.
“To be able to do that within the hospitality industry, we have to then employ more staff and we’re already struggling to find staff.”
