Half-term holidays boost restaurant sales in June

Published: 19 July, 2011

Half-term holidays and the lack of a major football tournament have boosted pub and restaurant takings in June, as like-for-like sales were up 3.9%.

That's according to the Coffer Peach Business Tracker, which analyses data from 23 major pub and restaurant groups. The latest data shows that the eating and drinking out is continuing to outperform the rest of the retail sector, where sales increased just 1.5% in June, according to the British Retail Consortium / KPMG Retail Sales Monitor.

"The football World Cup in June last year had a mixed impact. While drinks-led pubs in general saw an upside, restaurants generally suffered sales drops. Big sporting events are a mixed blessing - and even pubs didn't perform as well as they had hoped last year," said Peter Martin of Peach Factory, which produces the report.

"That said the increase this June shows an underlying resilience in consumer spending on eating and drinking out, which seems less fickle than retail. While it would be premature to forecast any significant upturn for the market, it remains solid," he added.

May had seen a slight 0.3% decline in like-for-like sales - following a 3.8% uplift in the holiday month of April.

Richard Hathaway, head of travel, leisure and tourism at KPMG in the UK added: "These are pretty respectable figures, showing that smart operators and dynamic brands in the sector continue to take a growing share of the UK consumer's hard earned and shrinking disposable income."

Meanwhile Jonathan Leinster, head of UBS European leisure research, said: "June was better than expected given all the negative news around the U.K. consumer."

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