UKHospitality CEO Kate Nicholls discusses a challenging year for the industry

Many would have imagined the hospitality industry would be well into its post-pandemic recovery stride by now, but instead it remains mired by problems – mainly financial – which prevent it leading the UK’s economic fightback as it should.

But rather than throw in the towel, the resilient, innovative and creative hospitality sector battles on in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Show me another industry with all of this ranged against it right now: soaring energy bills, great accumulated debt, an unfair business rates regime, VAT back to 20 percent and higher wage bills due to a huge jobs shortage. Add waning consumer confidence caused by the cost-of-living crisis and a war in Europe with no end in sight leading to lingering uncertainty around prices of raw goods such as fish, wheat and sunflower oil.

Hospitality is undoubtedly the industry best placed to lead the UK out of its current economic malaise. Pre-pandemic, our sector created £130bn in economic activity and generated £39bn of tax for the Exchequer, funding vital public services. It was the third largest private sector employer in the UK, representing 10 per cent of employment, six per cent of businesses and five per cent of GDP. We’re confident that with the right support measures in place, hospitality businesses can bounce back stronger, delivering growth and investment across the UK once more.

Not only that, but hospitality is perfectly positioned to support the country’s need to bring prosperity to all regions and its ambitions to improve social mobility. Earlier this year, UKHospitality published two strategy papers: Level up hospitality – level up society, which sets out our industry’s unique position to deliver growth and unlock opportunity in every local community; and Fixing the crisis, which acts as a framework for collaborative action across the sector. It examines all aspects of the sector’s labour needs, including recruitment, skills and training, people’s working lives, hospitality’s image as a sector in which to work, and the infrastructure needed to support our employees.

In the foreword to the latter, I noted: ‘A booming hospitality workforce will create a fantastic hospitality experience for all, and a better society. It’s crucial we work collaboratively to deliver on this workforce strategy. It will create economic growth and help to regenerate communities in all parts of the country. Higher employment rates and business levels will generate even further taxation from hospitality to fund and bolster local and national public services. It will also contribute to the UK being a leading tourist destination.’ I mention elsewhere that at the core of the workforce strategy is ‘…an ambition to upskill our workforce and create high-quality, high-skilled roles, promoting social mobility. Levelling up the hospitality workforce will help to level up the nation’.

To achieve this, UKHospitality is already working closely with government – the DWP and BEIS primarily – and will support local authorities in their efforts to deliver levelling up through the regeneration of high streets and the reignition of local economies. You’ve seen, then, that far from bemoaning the rather sorry state it finds itself in at the moment, hospitality is determined not only to fight its own way back to pre-pandemic levels of success and profitability, but to take the rest of the UK economy along for the ride.