Rail strike impact 'worse than expected' for hospitality

Hospitality businesses have said last week's rail strikes had a worse than expected impact on sales in the run up to the festive period.

Members of the RMT union walked out on 13, 14, 16 and 17 December, leaving many people unable to travel.

Sushi restaurant group K10, which has four sites in the city of London, had budgeted for a 20-25% drop in sales but said takings were 45% down on strike days last week.

Executive director Maurice Abboudi said this had come off the back of a record week and there had been a "small uptick" in sales on Thursday when train services resumed.

Shoaib Malik, general manager at Indian fine dining restaurant Kahani London, last week said the walkouts were costing the business around £4,000 - £5,000 a day in lost trade while Sam's Riverside in London's Hammersmith saw hundreds of bookings cancelled.

The Night Time Industries Association (NTIA), which represents late-night bars, pubs and other venues, warned the current trading environment was becoming "untenable" for businesses.

"Feedback from members across the UK has suggested that strike action has had a deeper impact than expected, with businesses seeing over 50% downturn in trade on the busiest weekend of the year," said Michael Kill, chief executive of the NTIA.

"The government must extend the energy relief scheme and consider further support for the night time economy and hospitality sectors to avoid a huge swathe of businesses going into insolvency in January."

Further strikes are set to take begin on 6pm on Christmas Eve until 6am on 27 December.

Network Rail has said trains will finish around 3pm, with some locations receiving no service at all, and has advised passengers to only travel "if absolutely necessary".

RMT members have also begun an overtime ban, which will remain in place until 2 January and is due to affect available services.

Image: giggsy25 / Shutterstock