January 11, 2016 · Team HG
Café sales have been well over a quarter below the level of the peak year 2007 for nearly two years now. While other sectors of the traditional hospitality industry, such as restaurants and hotels, are seeing volume (roughly the number of drinks and overnight stays) recover, cafés are lagging far behind. This is reported by CBS.
Cafés are by far the worst-performing sector within the traditional hospitality industry. Their turnover lags furthest behind pre-crisis levels in both value and volume. Café turnover in the first three quarters of 2015 is approximately 7 percent below 2007 levels. Prices in cafés in 2015 are more than a quarter higher than in 2007. This price increase is greater than at other hospitality businesses and also greater than inflation in the Netherlands during that period. The volume of café turnover is more than a quarter below 2007 levels.
In July 2008, the smoking ban in the hospitality industry came into effect. In the quarters that followed, the revenue development of cafes lagged behind compared to the rest of the hospitality sector. However, in later years as well, cafes continued to perform worse than restaurants and hotels. In mid-2010, hotels and restaurants gradually began to recover, while cafes continued to decline.
The turnover volume of the other segments within the traditional hospitality sector (hotels and restaurants) even rose in the first three quarters of 2015 to slightly above the level before the financial and economic crisis. This increase is due to volume growth at the hotels; restaurants are still lagging nearly 4 percent behind pre-crisis turnover volumes.
Much fewer cafes
In 2008, the Netherlands still had over 13,000 cafes. By early 2015, this number had fallen by 13 percent to just over 11,000. The largest declines during this period occurred in the provinces of Groningen, Drenthe, and Limburg, where the number of cafe establishments dropped by over 20 percent. Flevoland was the only province with an increase in the number of cafes. Most cafes are located in North Holland (2,100), the fewest in Flevoland (110).
Limburg has the most cafes per capita, with 11 cafes per 10,000 inhabitants. Flevoland lags far behind: there are fewer than 3 cafes per 10,000 inhabitants. The province of Utrecht also has relatively few cafes: there are just over 4 cafes per 10,000 inhabitants.
Source: CBS.nl
See also article: Strong growth in the number of establishments in the hospitality sector
