Stability in site numbers shows "impressive resilience"

The end 2024 saw the same number of licensed premises as 12 months earlier.

Britain’s pubs, restaurants and hotels overcame industry challenges to end 2024 with virtually the same number of premises as 12 months earlier, leaving encouraging signs for hospitality operators. 

The Hospitality Market Monitor from CGA by NIQ and AlixPartners reveals shows that 99,120 venues operated in December 2024, compared to 99,113 in December 2023.

This represents a year of solid consolidation after the contraction in 2022 and 2023, when the licensed sector shrank by 4.5% and 2.9%, respectively.

The study tracks Britain’s ‘licensed’ hospitality sector, which includes pubs, bars, nightclubs, restaurants, cafes, hotels and fast-food outlets.

However, the year-on-year comparison does disguise a substantial churn in hospitality, as many venues changed hands and some group-owned units switched to new trading formats. In total, there were 4,078 closures and 4,085 openings throughout the year, which is a turnover equivalent to 11 venues per day.

End of year blues

Closures did accelerate in the final quarter of 2024 due to mounting cost pressures and changing consumer habits.

Site numbers contracted by 0.7% between October and December, an average of just over eight net closures per day, as cost pressures mounted and consumers tightened their spending. This last quarter contraction means 748 venues were lost in three months, and if this trend were to continue, it would represent a net loss of nearly 3,000 venues a year.

"Given all the challenges that were thrown at hospitality in 2024, stability in site numbers shows the impressive resilience of operators," says Karl Chessell, director of hospitality operators and food at CGA by NIQ. "However, we continue to see a rapid churn of sites as the sector adapts to consumers’ changing habits, while hundreds of net closures in the final quarter of the year emphasise that the burden of costs, made even heavier by the autumn Budget, is threatening hospitality’s fragile renewal.

"The long-term confidence of leaders, entrepreneurs and investors is solid, but January has already brought further closures of venues that clung on through Christmas. With economic uncertainty lingering, many more hospitality venues remain extremely vulnerable."


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