Yorkshire’s hospitality sector sees strong start to 2017

Yorkshire hotels have experienced a strong start to 2017, according to research by R3 which shows they outperformed many other parts of the country in what is traditionally one of the toughest months of the year for the sector.

The latest figures show that the proportion of hotels in Yorkshire at higher than normal risk of insolvency in January was down to 17.9%, well below the national average of 19.4%.

Of the 535 active hotels in the region, only 96 are identified as being at higher than normal risk.

Yorkshire was only out-performed by London with 16.9% of hotels at higher than normal risk.

In terms of pubs, one of the sectors which has continued to struggle post-recession, just 21.4% of the region’s pubs were identified as being at higher than normal risk, below the UK-wide figure of 22.6%.

However, the performance of restaurants in Yorkshire was slightly less encouraging with 24% at higher than normal risk, slightly above the national average of 23.8%.

Adrian Berry, chair of R3 in Yorkshire and restructuring partner at Deloitte LLP, said: “It is cheering to see that despite fears of a fall in consumer confidence post-EU referendum, so far, people seem to be continuing to spend. In fact, the hospitality sector may be benefitting from more overseas visitors as a result of the weak pound.

“However, with petrol and food prices expected to grow this year, consumers may start to feel the pinch which will, of course, have a knock-on effect on many businesses.

“It’s also worrying to see that much of the Christmas spending spree appears to have relied on the plastic with credit card debts hitting a record high last month.

“Add to this the ongoing political uncertainty in Europe and the US, and, unfortunately, we can still expect some rocky times ahead.”

R3 uses research compiled from Bureau van Dijk’s ‘Fame’ database of company information to track the number of businesses in key regional sectors that have a heightened risk of entering insolvency in the next year.

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