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A fifth of restaurant owners have come close to shutting down for good – due to no-shows and last-minute cancellations.<\/p>\n
The study, of 200 restaurant owners, found a third are given less than one hours\u2019 notice for cancellations – making it unlikely they\u2019ll get another booking in its place.<\/p>\n
Owners claim no-shows are up 40 percent and cancellations are up 35 percent – and for every customer who doesn\u2019t turn-up it costs proprietors an average of \u00a389.<\/p>\n
Food waste (56 percent), staffing challenges (34 percent) and being forced to close early (23 percent) are the top things affected by diners not turning up.<\/p>\n
As a result, late cancellations and no-shows are among the biggest challenges the restaurant industry currently faces – according to 23 percent of owners.<\/p>\n
Kirsty Morris, MD for payments provider, Barclaycard Payments, which commissioned the research, said: \u201cThe hospitality industry has faced many challenges in recent years and is continuing to feel the strain against the backdrop of the cost-of-living.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile diners are becoming increasingly picky about the venues they choose to spend their hard-earned cash at, it\u2019s really important this doesn\u2019t translate to indecisiveness and negatively impact restaurants through cancellations.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith more venues considering charging cancellation fees to deter no-shows, we want to help diners understand the impact on businesses of cancelling at the last-minute so they can think ahead and give advance warning – and not get stung with a cancellation charge.<\/p>\n
\u201cRestaurateurs looking to take booking deposits online can do so by working with a trusted payments provider to enable customers to do so at the point of booking.\u201d<\/p>\n
The study also found many owners have or are considering introducing measures to help prevent cancellations and no-shows.<\/p>\n
More than a third (34 percent) now take card details when taking bookings and charge a fee if a customer does not turn up, while 37 percent plan to introduce this measure in the future.<\/p>\n
And 35 percent take a deposit before they\u2019ll reserve a table.<\/p>\n
Additional research of 2,000 diners, also by Barclaycard Payments, found 37 percent have cancelled on the day of a booking – typically giving less than six hours\u2019 notice.<\/p>\n
However, 27 percent would cancel earlier if they better understood the impact this can have on such businesses.<\/p>\n
While 33 percent would be \u201cless likely\u201d to cancel a booking at all if they\u2019d been asked to pay a deposit.<\/p>\n
And even though 39 percent feel guilty about letting restaurants down, 11 percent would rather fork out a cancellation fee than phone to cancel a booking, accepting a loss of an average of \u00a329.<\/p>\n
Carried out through OnePoll, the study found 51 percent of diners intend to eat out more regularly during the summer than they have done so far this year.<\/p>\n
Tom Aikens, owner of Michelin Starred restaurant Muse, said: \u201cWe do everything we can to minimise the impact of cancellations through detailed booking confirmations, requesting guests confirm their reservations six days prior, and having a strict five-day cancellation policy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis seems to work well for us and leads to less cancellations on the day.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut unfortunately, there are still some unavoidable circumstances where this is the case, which leads to challenges such as food wastage, staffing levels and fundamentally loss of sales.\u201d<\/p>\n
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