Sector sees first outlet growth in two years
There has been a 0.5% increase in the number of licensed premises between March and June 2024.
The hospitality sector has recorded its first quarter-on-quarter growth in outlets in two years.
According to the new Hospitality Market Monitor from CGA by NIQ and AlixPartners, there has been a 0.5% increase in the number of licensed premises between March and June 2024, equivalent to 462 net new openings, or five per day.
It is the first such increase since mid-2022 and only the third since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020.
Second-quarter growth was even across the different sectors of hospitality and extended to the independent segment, where numbers increased by 0.5% to end several years of sustained closures caused by severe cost and Covid-related pressures.
CGA says the upward trend is in line with other positive indicators from 2024, including solid growth in sales plus an easing of inflation and household bills.
Welcome signs
"These numbers are a welcome sign of the confidence of business leaders and investors in hospitality," says Karl Chessell, CGA by NIQ’s director of hospitality operators and food, EMEA. "While it’s too early to be sure that hospitality’s downward trend in outlets has bottomed out, alongside solid sales growth over the first half of 2024 these figures indicate the brightest outlook for the sector for some time."
However, while quarter-on-quarter movements are positive, longer-term comparisons are weaker, with outlet numbers down by 1.0% or 969 from June 2023. Britain’s total sites are still 13.8% below the pre-Covid figure of March 2020.
"Cost pressures mean thousands of businesses remain fragile and millions of consumers’ discretionary spending continues to be tight, and hospitality may never fully return to its pre-Covid size in outlet terms," adds Chessell. "But it’s clear that it is now back on a much surer path."
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