The hospitality sector saw revenue drop by 18% last week, with pubs losing over half (54%) of their weekly takings following strike action on the London Underground, new data shows.
According to hospitality employee experience platform Harri, on Tuesday 21 April alone, pubs saw revenues fall 46%, while cafés experienced a 26% drop.
Over the week, quick service restaurants saw revenue fall by 34%, with a 14% drop at casual dining venues. Meanwhile, sales were down 8% at cafés and 4% at fast casual restaurants.
“Strike action has compounded the myriad of challenges already facing the hospitality sector,” said Harri head of global customer experience Dan Maimone. “These figures are a big blow, particularly with more strike days planned.
“Supporting local pubs and hospitality venues on strike days has never been more important, and we’d encourage people to make every effort to visit and back their neighbourhood businesses where they can.”
Ahead of the Tube strikes, which ran between 21 and 24 April, Kate Nicholls, CEO of trade body UKHospitality, warned they would have a “devastating impact” on the sector, after strike days in 2023/24 led to pubs and bars losing up to 38% of sales.
Last week’s strikes came as the latest blow to the sector. Earlier this year, labour market data from the Office for National Statistics found almost 9,000 hospitality jobs had been lost since the November budget.
At the time, UKHospitality said this “reinforced the scale of the challenges facing hospitality”, with changes to employer NICs and other increased employment costs continuing to affect the sector.
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