24/10/2023 10:04:00
Britain's managed restaurant, pub and bar groups completed 12 consecutive months of year-on-year sales growth in September, the new CGA RSM Hospitality Business Tracker reveals. The Tracker, which is produced by CGA by NIQ in partnership with RSM UK, indicated like-for-like growth of 5.9% last month - close to both the Tracker's August figure of 5.3% and the general rate of inflation, advises the Restaurant. Above average temperatures in many parts of the country made it a strong month for pubs, where sales grew 8.6% as many consumers enjoyed visits to beer gardens and terraces. Growth in the restaurants sector was a little lower of 4.8%. Bars, meanwhile, had another challenging month, with sales down by 8.9%.
Hospitality and leisure operator Boxpark has announced plans for a new development in Birmingham, reports Pub & Bar. The new site, scheduled to launch in 2025, will follow the opening of new sites in other major UK cities, including London, and will be the brand's first branch in the Midlands. Boxpark has agreed on a 15-year lease with landlords The Arch Company for the Floodgate Street Arches site, which is situated in Digbeth. Formerly an industrial zone, Digbeth has now established itself as one of the UK's key creative hubs with a large and growing cluster of creative industries, offices, restaurants, bars and leisure units coming to the area over the last 10 years.
Pubs and bars have been warned they face huge multimillion-pound hikes in business rates bills from April 2024 if the Government fails to act when it comes to freezing rates and failing to retain discounts currently offered. September's Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation, the headline rate of inflation, signals a £1.95bn business rate rise in England next April for the 2024-25 financial year for all business rates-paying companies without intervention for chancellor Jeremy Hunt at his upcoming Autumn Statement on 22 November, experts at commercial real estate intelligence firm Altus Group have warned. At the Autumn Budget in 2017, the Government switched the annual uplifting of business rates for inflation from the Retail Price Index (RPI) to the lower headline rate of inflation (CPI) in the preceding September from 1 April 2018, reports Morning Advertiser.
Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza operator InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) reported an 18% boost in UK revenue per available room (RevPAR) compared to 2019 rates in its third quarter trading update. It said group RevPAR increased by 10.5% compared with the same quarter in 2022, while EMEAA (Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia) witnessed a 15.9% jump over the period. IHG added 4,800 rooms across 31 hotels to the EMEAA pipeline during the quarter, around 40% of which were conversions, reports The Caterer.
UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls has said the government must ensure a minimum rail service in the lead up to and over the festive period or compensate businesses and workers for any losses, advises CLH News.