Hospitality openings slow in H1 2025, study finds

The number of new openings in the hospitality sector only saw a 1% increase in H1 2025, less than half the rate seen during H1 2024, 2.5%, according to data from market intelligence data company Meaningful Vision.

Store openings across all fast food segments have slowed down, with the exception of the burger segment, which maintained the same pace of openings (2.6%) as in 2024.

Pizza was the only segment to register a decline in shop numbers during H1 2025, -0.7%, with many facing greater challenges in achieving operational efficiency due to heightened price competition and limited opportunities for price differentiation.

Despite traditionally having led footfall growth regionally, London recorded a decline in traffic for the first time since the post-Covid recovery period. By contrast, Northern Ireland remains the fastest growing region, accelerating further in 2025, followed by the South, Wales and Scotland.

While London may be lagging, overall footfall traffic in 2025 has performed better than in the first six months of last year, -0.5% vs -1.2%, driven mainly by footfall growth within fast food, +0.8% vs -0.9%.

April and May demonstrated the strongest growth, making Q2 performance look much stronger than both Q1 and 2024 overall.

However, June showed the weakest year-on-year trend and overall like-for-like guest numbers are still declining, even in fast food, -1.3%, as traffic growth has been outpaced by new openings.

Meanwhile, in H1 2025, restaurants increased the number of promotional offers by 23%, maintaining a similar pace to the 25% growth seen in 2024. This means the volume of promotions has grown by nearly 50% over two years.

Growth in delivery platforms has been even more dramatic, rising 35% in 2024 and accelerating to 93% during H1 2025 alone, more than doubling promotional activity in just two years.

Maria Vanifatova, CEO of Meaningful Vision, said: “In 2023–24, the market was in recovery mode after the pandemic. As people returned to offices, we saw growth in breakfast and lunch trading, particularly in London and other major cities, with an emphasis on central business districts. It now appears that this source of growth has run its course, with more consumers adopting flexible schedules or hybrid working patterns, which leads them to eat outside of traditional meal times.”