Diners who don’t show up for reservations to cost pubs and restaurants £18bn this year

DINERS who fail to show up for reservations will cost pubs and restaurants up to £18billion this year.

One in seven customers admits to not honouring a booking and failing to tell the venue since the hospitality industry reopened in April, a survey shows.

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A fifth of no-shows blamed a change of plan or someone catching Covid.

But one in six claims to have simply forgotten, the poll by industry experts Zonal and CGA found.

It comes as pubs and restaurants struggle to recover from lockdowns and grapple with shortages of staff and supplies. No-shows are particularly rife among younger people.

Over a quarter of those aged 18 to 34 have not honoured bookings, compared with one in a 100 aged 55 or over.

Sales lost this year could hit £17.6billion, Zonal and CGA estimate. That is before any food wastage or staff costs.

Trade body UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls said: “No-shows have been a blight on the industry for many, many years but with tens of thousands of hospitality businesses in such a fragile state, they are currently deeply damaging to venues.”

It has joined a campaign launched by Zonal called #ShowUpForHospitality, aiming to encourage people to honour bookings or inform the venue of cancellations.

Zonal’s Olivia FitzGerald said: “The knock-on effects caused by no-shows are considerable.

“Staffing and stock levels are left seriously compromised, as well as lost revenue for a table that could have been taken by other guests.”

This post first appeared on thesun.co.uk