Despite inflation descreasing to 6.8% in July, hospitality industry leaders still have serious concerns for businesses ahead of a potential business rate hike next year.
UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls said that although seeing a drop from 7.9% in June marks an encouraging trend, there would still need to be a further significant drop to alleviate remaining concerns.
“With rate increases following the September inflation rate, we need to see a dramatic fall in inflation by then or hospitality will face a business rates bill running into the hundreds of millions.
“It’s clear the fall in the overall rate has been driven by decreasing energy costs, which suggests further action on energy could result in inflation coming down far more rapidly.
Nicholls continues to demand that the recommendations set out of Ofgem, to clean up the energy market should be implemented as soon as possible.
Michael Kill, CEO of the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), said that although although we have seen a decline in energy costs and the slower increase in food prices, they remain 15% higher than a year ago.
Kill notes the continued challenges faced by hospitality and night time economy businesses due to high operational costs, leading to customer constraints resulting in a drop in visit frequency and spend.
He believes there is a divergence between the Prime Minister’s confidence in the plan and the actual challenges the sector is confronting and expresses concern that immediate sectoral issues are being overlooked in favour of policy adherence.
