Two thirds of hospitality operators want to see a return of Eat Out to Help Out scheme
When asked if they were in favour of another Government-funding eating out scheme, 62% of respondents said they were, with 34% saying they would be “extremely” in favour of seeing its return.
Of those asked, 85% of respondents were confident that the public would also support another scheme - with over half (57%) ‘very’ or ‘extremely’ confident of this.
The EOHO scheme, which ran in August last year, was was hailed a success by the hospitality sector, with more than 100 million meals claimed in total by diners and a large majority of businesses saying it led to a boost in trade.
Some 80% of restaurant, pub and bar operators reported that the scheme had been a success, according to a Lumina Intelligence poll last year, with only 20% of businesses reporting that it did not work for them.
The scheme led to diners spending more than a third (34.2%) more at restaurants on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays in August than they did in July, according to data from Barclaycard Payments.
It had been criticised by some for helping spread Coronavirus, but data published by the Treasury last month has shown that there was 'no correlation' to rising Coronavirus cases across the country. It cited places including Westminster, Scarborough and North Devon as having experienced a huge uptake in EOHO customers in restaurants and pubs but very low subsequent Covid cases.
Confidence among the sector has risen, with the number of people not confident about the future of their business dropping from 42% the previous week to 33%.
Lumina Intelligence weekly poll is created for BigHospitality, Restaurant, MCA, and The MA.
