Friends and families gathered together to eat and drink over the festive season for the first time since Covid, boosting Christmas sales in the face of the cost of living crisis, according to hospitality companies Whitbread, which owns Premier Inn, and the pub and restaurant group Mitchells & Butlers.
Whitbread, which also owns the Beefeater and Brewers Fayre chains, said it had seen almost 17% like-for-like growth in the UK in sales of its Premier Inn hotel rooms, and food and drink at its restaurants in the 13 weeks to 1 December, compared with a year earlier.
The company said its accommodation sales were nearly a quarter higher than a year earlier and 37% above the level seen in late 2019, as people travelled to see friends and relatives over the festive season, after Omicron put a dampener on the previous Christmas. Higher occupancy rates, more expensive average room rates and the expansion of its hotel network all contributed to the higher sales.
Whitbread said its hotels in London and across the regions of the UK performed well as customers booked trips away and went to visit family and friends.
Its food and drink sales were 8% higher than a year earlier, but were 4% lower than pre-pandemic levels seen in 2019, and the company said it had launched several initiatives to try to boost sales.
Alison Brittain, chief executive of Whitbread, said: “Despite a more challenging period for the UK economy, our winning business model continues to deliver outstanding value and quality for our guests.”
She added that the company was optimistic about the coming year, because of “the strength of our forward booked position, robust pricing, estate growth and efficiency programme”.
Brittain – one of the few female FTSE 100 chief executive – is due to step down from the company in March, at the end of the financial year, and is being replaced by Dominic Paul, the boss of Domino’s Pizza.
Mitchells & Butlers – the owner of All Bar One, O’Neill’s and Harvester – said like-for-like food and beverage sales increased 10.4% over the 15 weeks to 7 January, compared with a year earlier.
Trading during the festive season gave a 13.3% boost to sales growth at the company, which has 1,600 venues in the UK.
It showed customers’ desire to return to their local pub or restaurant after fears of the spread of the Omicron variant dampened festive celebrations in December 2021, despite the cost of living crisis.
Mitchells & Butlers said its increased sales were primarily driven by increased sales of drinks, especially during the past five weeks, as customers celebrated with rounds of drinks in the pub and restaurant meals.
Sales were also nearly 9% higher than the same 15-week period in 2019, which was the last Christmas season before Covid.
However, the company said key trading weeks during the festive period were dented by industrial action, when strikes by rail workers prevented many people travelling, keeping commuters and shoppers at home and sparking Christmas party cancellations.
Phil Urban, Mitchells & Butlers chief executive, said the company was “delighted to have been able to welcome our guests back over the festive trading season after three years of disruption due to Covid 19, setting sales records as we did so”.
However, he added that the trading environment for the hospitality sector “remains very challenging with inflationary costs putting sustained pressure both on the industry’s margins and disposable income of our guests”.
