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Hospitality closures hold steady in 2024

This is a more positive signal for the hospitality industry after contractions in the number of licensed venues of 3.5% and 2.9% in 2022 and 2023 respectively.

Depsite the overall steady picture, the final quarter of 2024 saw an acceleration in closures during hospitality’s busiest period. The number of sites shrunk by 0.7% with eight net closures per day, with the total number of closures for October to December being 748.

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Karl Chessell, CGA by NIQ’s director, hospitality operators and food, EMEA, is proud of the resilience the industry has shown despite surmounting challenges, although is wary of the road ahead.

“Given all the challenges that were thrown at hospitality in 2024, stability in site numbers shows the impressive resilience of operators,” he said. “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.”

Digging deeper into the data, the findings show positive signs for pubs, bars and sports and social clubs. While the number food-led venues have fallen 0.7% compared to 2023, there was a 0.5% rise for drink-led sites.

Independently run food-led venues saw an encouraging growth of 1% in 2024, though there was a 3.2% drop in the number of food-led venues operated by multi-site groups.

Regional disparities were seen in terms of closures, with notable decreases seen in major cities like London, Birmingham and Oxford. There was better news for cities in the north of England with slight growth seen in Liverpool, Manchester and Leeds.

• CGA
• hospitality
• on trade
• closures
• costs
• venues