Hospitality suffers £115bn loss amid Covid damage

The hospitality industry has suffered a £115bn loss over the last two years due to Covid-19 as the sector was “hit first and hit hardest” by the pandemic, UKHospitality has said.

According to its data, the sector has racked-up a loss of £114.8bn sales compared to what was expected for 2020/21. The hospitality industry normally generates up to £140bn a year, however it has lost 43% and 45 full weeks of sales since March 2020.

Meanwhile, the latest edition of the UKHospitality and CGA Quarterly Tracker reveals that hospitality enjoyed a 121% final quarter growth in 2021 of £17.3bn compared to 2020 levels.

However, this is still down 32.3% compared to the 12 months ending December 2019, which is equivalent to a £43bn loss across hospitality in 2021 against expected 2019 levels.

Additionally, the sector is facing rising costs across the board and UKHospitality is urging the Government to keep VAT at 12.5% beyond April. Last week it also gave its backing to Hospitality Rising, a planned £5m industry-wide drive to recruit the 400,000 people needed to ease the staff shortage crisis.

Kate Nicholls, UKHospitality chief executive, said: “These figures lay bare the utter devastation that two years of this terrible pandemic has wreaked on the third largest private sector employer in the UK, with thousands of businesses closed, many on the brink of collapse, and countless jobs lost.

“Businesses big and small have been left with depleted cash reserves and crippling debt as Covid loans as well as contending with a gaping hole of 400,000 job vacancies, as more than 80% of hospitality businesses report they have roles to fill.”

She added: “But two years on, and with all restrictions about to end, there are signs of hope and recovery. With government support, hospitality – which is full of energetic, creative and entrepreneurial people – must be at the vanguard of the UK’s wider post-pandemic recovery.”