Nearly £900 Million Is Coming Hospitality’s Way, Are We Ready?

The World Cup is here, and honestly, hospitality could not have asked for it at a better time.

After years of rising costs, staffing pressures, business-rate increases, higher wages, energy bills and customers becoming more careful about how they spend their money, our industry finally has something enormous to get excited about.

And when I say enormous, I mean nearly £900 million enormous.

Football fans across the UK are forecast to spend around £898 million in hospitality venues during the tournament. That is more than double the £442 million generated during the 2022 World Cup and 46% more than the £614 million spent during Euro 2024.

Of that total, around £536 million is expected to be spent on alcohol and other drinks, with a further £361 million spent on food.

Those numbers are huge.

The Evening Standard recently published an article titled From the brink to the bar: How the World Cup could save London’s hospitality sector. It might sound dramatic, but when you look at what the industry has been dealing with, it really does show how important this tournament could be.

Pubs have been closing at a rate of around two a day this year. Restaurants, hotels and bars are all feeling the pressure too. Businesses are battling increased wages, National Insurance, energy costs, food inflation and some frightening rises in business rates.

At the same time, customers are still going out, but many are going out less frequently and thinking harder about where they spend their money.

Then along comes the biggest World Cup in history.

This year’s tournament features 48 teams and 104 matches, compared with 32 teams and 64 matches at the last World Cup. It runs for 39 days, giving hospitality businesses more than five weeks of football, excitement and reasons for customers to come together.

That is what makes it such a brilliant opportunity.

It is not just one England match or one busy Saturday night. It is weeks of group games, in the week games, knockout matches, late-night kick-offs and hopefully a long run for the home nations.

More than nine million people have said they plan to watch at least one match in a pub, and the British Beer and Pub Association predicts pubs could sell an additional 55 million pints during the tournament, creating an estimated £275 million boost in pint sales alone.

Bookings have reportedly risen by 184% in pubs ahead of the tournament and by 64% across hospitality more widely.

Venues are filling up. Some of the biggest football-watching locations sold out England fixtures weeks or even months before the tournament began.

That tells us something important.

People do not only want to watch football. They want to experience it together.

They want the atmosphere. They want the cheering, the groaning, the singing and the inevitable moment when everybody suddenly believes football is coming home again.

You cannot recreate that feeling sitting alone in your living room.

This is where hospitality comes into its own.

Our venues provide somewhere for people to meet, celebrate and share an experience. That is what hospitality has always been about, but a major tournament reminds people just how important those spaces are.

During Euro 2024, pubs and bars using Lightspeed saw their average daily transaction value increase by 20% compared with the rest of the year. The number of daily transactions rose by 24%.

England matches delivered average sales increases of around 42%, rising to 56% for the final. Scotland matches created an uplift of around 38%.

Even during the 2022 World Cup, hospitality made a visible difference to the wider economy. Food and beverage service activity grew by 2.2% during November, helping the UK economy record unexpected growth that month.

That is the scale of hospitality’s impact.

When our venues are busy, the benefit goes much further than the bar.

It supports local breweries, food suppliers, taxi drivers, security companies, cleaners, performers and countless other businesses connected to the sector. It creates shifts for team members and brings footfall back into towns and city centres.

It gets people off the sofa and back into their local venues.

The timing of this World Cup could also work particularly well for pubs and bars.

With the tournament taking place across the United States, Canada and Mexico, many matches kick off later in the evening in the UK. Several England games begin at 9pm or 10pm, which means customers may visit for dinner first, stay for the football and continue celebrating afterwards.

Fuller’s, which operates more than 300 pubs and hotels, has described the evening kick-offs as ideal for trading because they allow venues to keep their usual daytime and early-evening business before the match begins.

There are challenges, of course.

Later matches mean operators need to consider staffing, licensing, security and transport for employees and customers. Businesses will need to plan stock carefully, simplify menus and make sure they can serve large numbers of people quickly.

A full pub looks fantastic, but it still needs to be run properly.

Nobody wants to spend half the match waiting at the bar. Nobody wants food arriving after the final whistle. And no operator wants to discover that they have generated huge sales but lost most of the benefit through unnecessary staffing, wasted stock or expensive promotions.

But these are good problems to have.

After years of talking about closures, rising bills and survival, it feels refreshing to discuss how we manage growth, crowds and demand.

Hospitality has spent long enough being asked to absorb one cost after another. This tournament gives the sector a genuine chance to fight back.

And the opportunity goes far beyond selling pints.

Venues can create matchday menus, food packages, quizzes, live entertainment and pre-match events. Hotels can attract supporters travelling to watch games with friends or attending large screenings. Restaurants that do not show football can offer an escape for customers who want a quieter evening.

There is room for everyone to benefit.

The smartest businesses will also think beyond the tournament itself.

Thousands of customers will visit pubs, restaurants and bars they have never been to before. They might choose somewhere because it has the biggest screen or the best atmosphere, but the service they receive will determine whether they ever return.

A warm welcome, great food, quick drinks and a brilliant atmosphere can turn a World Cup customer into a regular customer.

That might be the biggest prize of all.

The World Cup will not solve every problem facing hospitality. Five weeks of football cannot undo years of rising costs or replace the need for meaningful government support.

But we should not talk down what is coming either.

Nearly £900 million in predicted spending is not a small boost. Fifty-five million additional pints is not insignificant. Millions of people choosing to gather in pubs, bars, hotels and restaurants is something our industry should celebrate.

This could be one of hospitality’s biggest trading opportunities in years.

It is a chance to fill venues, create jobs, support suppliers, bring energy back into our towns and cities and remind people why going out still matters.

For once, the industry has been given something genuinely positive to look forward to.

Nearly £900 million is coming hospitality’s way.

Now we need to open the doors, turn on the screens and make it count.