Two thirds of hospitality businesses believe April reopening isn’t viable, says poll

26-Feb-2021 - Last updated on 27-Apr-2021 at 13:11 GMT

Almost two-thirds (63%) of hospitality businesses say it is not viable to reopen in April when outside trading is permitted, according to the latest Hospitality Leader’s Poll from Lumina Intelligence.

Of the poll of business leaders from the restaurant, pub and QSR sectors, 30% say they have no outside space, making an April reopening impossible, while 33% say it not viable for other reasons.

Only 11% of respondents say that they would reopen for business on 12 April.

More positively, four in five (83%) respondents say they will be able to keep their business solvent until17 May, when businesses will be able to reopen for dine-in and drink-in trdae, through a combination of grants, savings and investments.

Only 3% of respondents believe that the 10-week wait will be too long, and they would be forced to enter insolvency proceedings.

The poll also found that there is a low level of confidence from the sector that the Government’s roadmap for reopening the country would go to plan, with 68% of those asked saying they had low levels of confidence, compared with 17% who had a high degree of confidence.

Only 13% of respondents say that have a good level of confidence in the Government’s roadmap plans.

In the latest business confidence tracker, 60% of those surveyed said they were confident about the future of their business – relatively unchanged from 61% in the previous week’s poll.

The Hospitality Leaders Poll is a conducted by Lumina Intelligence on behalf of BigHospitality, MCA, and the Morning Advertiser.