Hospitality business confidence slides in just a week
In last week’s poll (31 July) less than a third (27%) of those asked said they were not confident in the future of their business, which rose this week to 36.1%.
A slight drop of 0.1% to 13.6% of operators asked said they were confident while those that were quite confident fell from 53.9% last week to 46.6%.
Those saying they were very confident fell from 5.2% to 3.7% over seven days.
Calorie labelling in pubs
Meanwhile, operators were asked what they thought of Government proposals to implement mandatory calorie labelling on food and drink in pubs, bars and restaurants.
Unsurprisingly, the majority disagreed with the move, with 76% saying they didn’t want calorie counts on alcohol and 83% saying they didn’t want it on food menus either.
Following the news of local lockdowns in the north of England as well as talk about other local lockdowns in the UK, the majority of operators asked (94%) said they were concerned about the impact of such moves on their businesses in the coming months.
Meanwhile, last week saw operators call out for a tax relief extension, with 37% of those asked saying it was their top priority in terms of needed Government support.
Not passing on VAT cut
It also showed that the majority of operators would not be passing on Chancellor Rishis Sunak’s six-month-long VAT cut onto customers.
Some 85% of respondents to the Lumina poll said they would not reduce prices on food and soft drinks for customers.
The rate of VAT applied to most tourism and hospitality businesses was cut from 20% to 5% by Sunak, and announced at the beginning of July.
