Hospitality sector sees Q1 sales drop 21.3%
The drop in trading was concentrated in March, when the lockdown was implemented.
The UK hospitality sector saw sales decline 21.3% in the first quarter of 2020, as the country and the industry moved into lockdown, figures from the newly launched UKHospitality Quarterly Tracker revealed.
The new report said the drop is concentrated in March as figures show total annualised sales across the hospitality sector at £126.8 billion, down 2.7% on the previous 12 months.
The total value of the sector to the UK economy at the end of 2019 was £133.5bn. The report expects it will be “a long time” before that level is reached again.
“The scale of the fall underlines the severe impact the COVID-19 crisis and the lockdown imposed by the Government from March 23 has already had on the sector. At the end of December, the industry had seen year-on-year growth running at +3.9% - the turnaround has been dramatic and will only get worse in the coming quarter,” UKHospitality CEO Kate Nicholls said.
“A continuation of business support is the only way to avoid a bloodbath of job losses and company failures in the hospitality sector, one of the UK economy’s jewels in the crown,” she added.
Data for the new UKHospitality Quarterly Tracker has been compiled by CGA, using its own Trading Index and OPM data on food and drink sales across the on-trade, combined with hotel data supplied by STR and fast food market data supplied by NPD Group’s Crest Panel, direct company contributions and complemented with ONS statistics.
