Third of Brits admit to restaurant no-shows

Some 33.7% UK diners revealed they have failed to turn up to a table booking without informing the restaurant at some point in their life, data from restaurant reservation platform OpenTable has found.

However, it was found that restaurant goers were less likely to no-show if they have made an online reservation. According to OpenTable, in 2018 only 4.4% of online bookings made through its platform resulted in a no-show, compared to 4.6% of phone reservations.

The behaviour described as a ‘no-show’ is a concern amongst the UK restaurant industry, with independent restaurant owners to nationwide chains stating it can have a significant effect on business. Because of this, OpenTable has launched a ‘book responsibly’ campaign, to educate diners on the impact not cancelling a reservation can have.

The external research showed that young adults admitted to being the worst offenders with 25% of 16-24-year olds admitting to regularly failing to show up for their restaurant reservation. Some 91.2% of Generation Z diners claimed they had never stood up a first date and 88.8% said they never failed to show up to work without informing their boss, but this attitude was not reserved for their attendance to restaurant bookings.

The city with the largest number of diners who admit to having no-showed for a reservation at least once in their life is London (40%), followed by Manchester (39%) then Leeds (38.7%).

In terms of the reasons given for no-shows, 38% claimed it was too last minute for them to cancel their booking, while 40% of women blamed their memory. A sixth of men said they didn’t know how to cancel the booking. Despite not letting them know, 71% said they felt guilt for letting the restaurant down.

Adrian Valeriano, VP EMEA, OpenTable, said: “We can all be more aware of the impact that no-shows and late cancellations can have on a restaurant. We have launched this campaign to help build awareness amongst diners of the issue and showcase how we continue to leverage our technology and diner network in ways that only OpenTable can to help reduce no-show rates and mitigate the impact of late cancellations.

“Our approach to no-shows is to maximise the functionality of our technology to minimise the impact of them on both diners and restaurants.”