Hospitality sector lost £100bn in sales since start of pandemic: study

Government is being urged to take measures to help, including an extension to the business rates holiday.

Hospitality businesses have suffered a hefty £100.2 billion drop in sales from pre-pandemic levels in the 15 months since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the latest UKHospitality Quarterly Tracker with CGA.

Prolonged closures and trading restrictions limited total sector sales in the 12 months to end-June 2021 to an estimated £59.8 billion, £72 billion less from the £131.9 billion in the 12 months to end-June 2019.

Adding on the second quarter of 2020, this brings total sales in the last 15 months to £64.4 billion, compared to £164.6 billion in the 15-month period to June 2019.
 
Meanwhile, estimated sales in the three months to end-June 2021 totalled £18.4 billion, compared to £4.6 billion in the same quarter of 2020, indicating the sector recovery is “underway” and that strong consumer demand for the sector “can help to power the UK’s wider economic revival.”
 
“These figures confirm in stark terms the huge impacts on the hospitality sector during Covid. Furthermore, while we hoped to be close to normal trading from 19 July, in reality hospitality businesses instead remain impeded, by the ongoing ‘pingdemic’ crisis, the pre-existing staffing shortage and the looming shadow of vaccine passports over some of the sector,” UKHospitality CEO Kate Nicholls said.
 
“History tells us that hospitality can be a leading economic force in driving an economic recovery but to do so in current conditions and with huge debt accruals, it will need further support to push it over the line and back to pre-Covid trading. Extension of the business rates holiday, speedy resolution to the rent problem and retention of the lower VAT rate indefinitely are more crucial than ever to safeguard jobs and businesses.”