Thu 20th Mar 2025 - Flat February for hospitality businesses as consumer spending tightens Flat February for hospitality businesses as consumer spending tightens: Britain’s leading restaurant, pub and bar groups delivered fractional like-for-like sales growth of just 0.1% in February, according to the latest CGA RSM Hospitality Business Tracker. The figure is well below the current rate of inflation and continues a challenging start to 2025 for the sector, following a year-on-year drop of 1.3% in January. It indicates that many consumers continue to remain watchful of their disposable income. The Tracker shows February delivered 2.5% growth in total sales, including all venues opened by groups in the last 12 months. However, with key costs still inflationary—including via extra national insurance contributions from April— it said margins in hospitality remain extremely tight. Pubs performed the best of the major hospitality channels in the Tracker for the third month in a row. Like-for-like sales finished 1.7% ahead of February 2024, having been partly boosted by the start of the Six Nations rugby tournament. With some consumers limiting their meals out, restaurant groups’ sales fell by 0.6%. While February featured Valentine’s Day, this year it occurred on a Friday, a day that already generally sees higher on-premise visitation compared to other days of the week, and last year it fell on a Wednesday, resulting in a missed mid-week sales boost this year. Bars continued a long-term drop in growth, with like-for-like sales down 7.9% in February. The on-the-go segment of the market slipped 1.9%. Hospitality had a slightly tougher month in London than elsewhere, the Tracker showed. Groups’ sales inside the M25 were down by 1.2% year-on-year, but beyond the M25 they recorded a marginal rise of 0.5%. Karl Chessell, director hospitality operators and food EMEA at CGA by NIQ, said: “After a flurry of spending over Christmas, it’s clearly been a challenging start to 2025 for the hospitality sector. Growth is very fragile, and hikes in national insurance contributions will pile even more pressure on managed groups. We remain optimistic that spending will start to loosen, and brighter weather and big occasions like St Patrick’s Day, Mother’s Day and Easter should help to rally sales. Nevertheless, real-terms growth will remain hard-earned for the foreseeable future.”