Number of licensed hospitality venues on the rise for first time since 2022

The number of licensed hospitality venues in Britain has risen on a quarterly basis for the first time in two years.

There were 462 net new openings between March and June 2024, equivalent to five per day and a 0.5% overall increase.

It is the first rise in venues seen since mid-2022 and only the third since the start of the pandemic in early 2020, according to the Hospitality Market Monitor from CGA by NIQ and AlixPartners.

Growth was seen across all areas of the hospitality industry and the number of independent venues increased by 0.5% after several years of sustained closures.

There have also been positive developments in the casual dining sector. After a rapid expansion of managed chain restaurants in the 2000s and 2010s, there were 6,696 casual dining sites in March 2020.

Covid and high inflation saw the segment slashed by 24.1% to 5,082 sites by June 2023—a total of 1,611 net closures or just over one per day. 

However, the number of casual dining sites has risen by 1.7% in the last 12 months, with an average of three net new sites a week in the first six months of 2024.

Despite the positive trend, the overall number of hospitality venues is 1% lower than in June 2023, equivalent to 969 sites, and 13.8% lower than the pre-Covid figure in March 2020.

Karl Chessel, CGA by NIQ’s director – hospitality operators and food, EMEA, said: “While it’s too early to be sure that hospitality’s downward trend in outlets has bottomed out, alongside solid sales growth over the first half of 2024 these figures indicate the brightest outlook for the sector for some time. 

“Cost pressures mean thousands of businesses remain fragile and millions of consumers’ discretionary spending continues to be tight, and hospitality may never fully return to its pre-COVID size in outlet terms—but it’s clear that it is now back on a much surer path.”

Graeme Smith, managing director at AlixPartners, said: “We expect to see this growth develop as confidence continues to rise in the second half of the year.”