THREE quarters of Scottish hospitality businesses reckon they will need government support to survive 2023, a new survey has found.
The Scottish Licensed Trade Association’s latest On-trade Market Insight Report for January quizzed operators across Scotland on their experiences of the 2022 festive season as well as the difficulties they are facing moving forward.
Just over three quarters of respondents – 76% – said they will require government support if their business is going to survive 2023.
This came as over half of respondents said their festive trading was down when compared to the 2019/20 festive season, with expenses including energy and business rates bills both increasing for many operators.
In fact, 80% of respondents said they are facing rising energy costs, with almost 30% stating their energy bills were going up by between 250% and 500%.
Just under 40% of respondents said they were reducing their opening hours because of staff shortages.
“We previously warned that it wouldn’t be economically viable for many outlets to remain open and we are now seeing this come to fruition with a knock-on impact on tourism and Scotland’s wider food and drink sector, including the supply chain,” said SLTA managing director, Colin Wilkinson.
“Christmas/New Year 2022 was the first time since 2019 that our pubs and bars were fully open without COVID restrictions, but the feedback in our survey shows that half of outlets were still in decline versus the last ‘normal’ festive season trading period.
“Adding in increases in rates, operating costs, staff shortages and uncertainty on energy, we urgently call on local and national governments to help our sector, and the associated jobs in the wholesaling, brewing/distilling and food-producing sectors.”
