Thehospitality industry in the United Kingdom is largely represented by the country's hotels, pubs, restaurants and leisure companies, and produces around 4% ofUK GDP.
There are over 207,000 eating venues in England, and around 25% of these are fast-food outlets.
According to theBritish Beer and Pub Association, around 8.5 billion pints of beer were sold, with 7.4 billion 175ml glasses of wine, and 1.2 billion pints of cider in the UK in 2018. Beer has 54 pence of duty per pint. There are around 2530 breweries in the UK. In late 2022 Guinness took over from Carling as the UK's favourite drink. One in nine pints bought is Guinness. 1% of beer sold in pubs is alcohol-free; including supermarket sales, it is 2% across the UK
In 2022 the hospitality industry was the 3rd biggest employer in the UK, accounting for 3.5m jobs through direct employment, and a further 3.0m indirectly.[1]
In 2022 the UK hospitality industry paid around £54bn in tax receipts.[1]
TheUK tourist industry is the8th largest tourism destination in the world.VisitBritain is responsible for tourists to the UK. In 2022 there were around 31.2 million overseas visitors to the UK.[2]
It is not one of the larger industries, byGDP, in the UK.
The formerHotel and Catering Industry Training Board was formed 7 November 1966[3] and became theHospitality Training Foundation, which ultimately becamePeople 1st on 19 May 2004; it is the industry'ssector skills council. In 2002 around eighty National Training Organisations (NTOs) became around twenty SSCs. The Council for Hospitality Management Education conversely has an international outlook.
TheNational Skills Academy for Food & Drink (NSAFD) is at York.[4] The Institute of Hospitality was known as HCIMA - Hotel and Catering International Management Association, which became the IoH in April 2007. The Hotel and Catering Institute was founded in 1949; the professional body merged with the Institutional Management Association in 1971. Hotel, Restaurant & Catering (HRC) is a main national event.
Greene King andMitchells & Butlers are two of the biggest apprenticeship providers in the UK, with around 1,500 each; only the armed forces,BT andHMRC have more numbers of apprenticeships. There are single awards GCSE Catering and GCSE Hospitality, or the double award GCSE Hospitality and Catering.
Victor Ceserani MBE pioneered catering education in the UK, when he was head of catering at Ealing College, now part ofUniversity of West London; this had been Acton Hotel and Catering School until 1957 and trained manyairline catering staff; he wroteThe Theory of Catering andPractical Cookery, with Ronald Kinton andDavid Foskett (academic).
Leicester College claim to be theEast Midlands leading training school for catering and food manufacturing.[5]Kendal College also claims to train top chefs, and alsoBournemouth and Poole College. TheSchool of Culinary Arts and Hospitality of the Victoria Centre ofWestminster Kingsway College is known for catering; it was the first culinary arts school in the UK in 1910.[6]Westminster Hotel School is an important training site.
TheUniversity of Strathclyde had the Scottish Hotel School in the late 1960s. Strathclyde and theUniversity of Surrey were the first two universities in UK to have hotel and catering management courses, both at the same time. Switzerland was the only other European country with a similar university course.[7] The University of Surrey moved to its present site in 1968 and was the first in the UK to offer a course for hotel and catering: a BSc in hotel and catering management, with a 48-week professional year starting in the March of the second year; the course was led by Brian Archer from 1978. Cardiff and Ulster universities had hospitality training in the 1980s.
Another important places for catering was the Dorset Institute of Higher Education, since 1992 being known asBournemouth University,[8] and in the 1980s the polytechnics of Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield City, Manchester, North London, and Middlesex.
TheRoyal National Hotel inBloomsbury is thefourth-largest hotel in Europe, and the largest hotel in the UK, with around 1,600 rooms; there are three other hotels in London with over 1,000 rooms, with another being thePark Plaza Westminster Bridge.The Old Bell, Malmesbury claims to be oldest hotel in England, from 1220.
The 39-storey Novotel London Canary Wharf (40 Marsh Wall) is the tallest purpose-built hotel in the UK, at 419 feet; it is the tallestNovotel hotel (owned byAccor); it opened in April 2017; it hasbeehives on the 39th floor, which produce freshhoney for guests; Novotel has thirty three hotels in the UK. The world's tallest hotel is the 356mGevora Hotel, built in 2017.
In 1949Francis Coulson and Brian Sack opened theSharrow Bay Country House onUllswater, Britain's first country house hotel. In 1978Blakes Hotel opened, Britain's first boutique hotel, byAnouska Hempel.
Motels began in the 1960s, largely byWatney Lyon; there were 120 motels in 1967.[9] In August 1981 Grand Met bought Intercontinental Hotels Group for £267m, fromPan Am, arranged by SirMaxwell Joseph and SirStanley Grinstead.[10] In August 1988 IHG was put up for sale by Grand Met.[11] This is nowIHG Hotels & Resorts.
Bass bought Holiday Inn International in 1987,[12] and in August 1989 it bought the whole ofHoliday Inn, becoming the world's largest hotel group.[13]
There were 30,000 hotels in 1987; the largest hotelier was THF with 203.[14] THF had begun on January 30 1903,[15] as the Hertfordshire Public House Trust Company, with its first pub inRidge, Hertfordshire,[16] and the next two in Elstree andBreachwood Green.[17] It eventually became Forte plc in May 1991.[18] By December 1995 there were 122 Forte Travelodges, when ran by John Hampson.
By 1994 the second-largest hotel group wasMount Charlotte Thistle, with 24 hotels, including the 808-roomTower Thistle in London,[19]formed in October 1989 when Mount Charlotte bought Thistle for £645m from Scottish & Newcastle.
Greenall Whitley, of Warrington, formed De Vere.
The UK hotel industry is worth £16bn.Travelodge has 595 hotels with 11 in Ireland, with around 12,000 employees, and in 2022 it turned over around £910m. Premier Inn has about 850 hotels, with 83,500 rooms, and a revenue of £2.5bn.
Other countries have a hotel tax, with 7.5% in Germany and 12% in the Netherlands. Novotel and Ibis are owned byAccor of France. In 1986 the first Ibis, in the UK, had opened at Heathrow Airport; there were six Novotel hotels in 1986.[20]Dalata Hotel Group is the largest hotel operator in Ireland, and has hotels in the UK.
The UK has around 25,000bed and breakfast establishments.
Forte sold Gardner Merchant in December 1992 for £402m; it was the UK's large contract caterer, to a management buyout funded byCinven, the private equity company.[21] Gardner Merchant, part of THF, was the largest contract catering management company in Europe, in 1987, serving a million meals per day.[22]
Compass was formed in the summer of 1987, with a £160m management buyout from Grand Met. By 1988 it had 2,600 catering contracts, with Gardner Merchant having 2,700.[23]
From August 1989, local education authorities had to allow private competition for school meals provision. Hospitals were also allowing competition.[24] In the 1980s, ARA (Automatic Retailers of America), an American company, had won many defence catering subcontracts; it becameAramark in 1994.
Moorwood Vulcan were a main British manufacturer of catering equipment, such as industrial gas cookers. It ceased manufacturing in 2016, being bought in October 2008 byThe Manitowoc Company ofMilwaukee inWisconsin, previously owned byEnodis.[25] It was originally formed in 1961 from Moorwoods, of the UK, and theVulcan-Hart Corporation of the US.[26] Many schools and colleges had their large gas cookers, as well as mostRoyal Navy ships, and theCunardQE2ocean liner in 1969.
Lincat, ofNorth Hykeham in Lincolnshire, are largely known for theirwater boilers, and also make various types of oven, anddeep fryers.
Foster Refrigerator, of westNorfolk, formed in 1968, claim to be Europe's largest manufacturer of commercialrefrigerators. It has been US-owned since 1999.
AGA Rangemaster Group, known for theAGA cooker, was inShropshire until 2017.Middleby of the USA bought AGA Rangemaster in 2015.
Much catering supplies are provided byBidfood (former 3663), ofBuckinghamshire, andBrake Bros ofKent.
TheFoodservice Equipment Association is nearSt Katharine Docks in central London,[27] and theCatering Equipment Distributors Association is inInkberrow, in eastWorcestershire.[28]
Since 2020 the UK has lost 37% of nightclubs, over 400, or ten a month.
Ye Olde Fighting Cocks in Hertfordshire claims to be England's oldest pub. 289 pubs closed in 2024.
TheLicensing (Restaurant Meals) Act 1987 of February 1987, allowed restaurants to serve alcohol throughout the day, and until 12am. It applied to pubs that served table meals.[29]
TheLicensing Act 1988, given Royal assent on 19 May 1988, allowed pubs to open from 3pm to 5.30pm.
AsMinister of State for Home Affairs,Michael Forsyth, Baron Forsyth of Drumlean introduced legislation that allowed children under-14 (which was prohibited by the formerLicensing Act 1964) into pubs, and were allowed to be served food until 9pm, with half-an-hour to eat the food, and promptly leave the premises by 9.30pm. The licensing law took effect from 3 January 1995, although it was February 1995 before pubs largely changed their policies. Pubs were allowed to open on Sundays from 3pm to 7pm. TheDeregulation and Contracting Out Act 1994 gained Royal assent on Thursday 3 November 1994. The act also allowed shops to open after 8pm, and for off-licences to sell alcohol on Sundays from 1 December 1994.[30]
Under theLicensing Act 1902, pubs can set their own policies, and from 2012, due to unruly children,Wetherspoons would serve no more than two alcoholic drinks to adults who accompanied children in their pubs.
The controversialLicensing Act 2003 allowed pubs to open when they liked. The 2003 act also allowed children under-16 to work in pubs. Children's working hours are governed by theChildren and Young Persons Act 1933. Section 150 of the 2003 act allowed 16 and 17 year olds to consume beer, cider or wine, but only with a meal in a pub. Spirits cannot be consumed by anyone under 18 in licensed premises. Pubs are not obliged to sell beer for 16 year olds eating a meal, and can refuse.[31]
Amanda Willmott had founded two pubs in Birmingham - Carpe Diem and Quo Vadis; this design formed the template for her new design of female-friendly pubs for Bass Inns, known asAll Bar One, in February 1994, which first opened in December 1994 inSutton, London; she went on to form a similar chainHa! Ha! Bar and Canteen, in 1998.
Raymond Postgate launched theThe Good Food Guide in 1951; his son later produced 'Ivor the Engine' and 'The Clangers'.
Beefeater Steak Houses were one of the first chains of restaurants, first opening in July 1974 inEnfield, London; in 1974 its most popular meal wasprawn cocktail,rump steak, followed byBlack Forest gateau and two glasses ofLiebfraumilchGerman wine; by 1995 it was Britain's largest restaurant chain, with 270 outlets, serving 15 million people per year.[32]
The former cafe atHartside Pass atLeadgate, Cumbria claimed to be the highest cafe in England, at 575m.
922 restaurants closed in 2019, and 1188 closed in 2018.
The 1990 Food Safety Act was the biggest change since 1938. It was introduced due to rising cases inlisteria in cooked chilled chicken products. It replaced theFood Act 1984. Prisons, civil service buildings and military bases would now have their kitchens inspected by localenvironmental health officers, which had not regularly happened before. There had been recentsalmonella outbreaks in NHS hospitals. All food outlets would now have to be registered with local authorities. Environmental health officers could instantly close down restaurants, without needing to obtain a court order. Restaurant owners could be fined £20,000 and jailed for six months by local magistrates.[33]
The Food Safety (General Food Hygiene) Regulations 1995 were introduced on 15 September 1995, which implemented the European Food Hygiene Directive 93/43/EEC.
The Food Information Regulations 2014 brought in the necessity for businesses to display the 14 allergens. This originated from the European FIC Regulation of December 2014, theRegulation (EU) No 1169/2011.
TheStonegate Pub Company (based close to theM1 in Luton) is the largest pub group in the UK, after it boughtEi Group in March 2020 for £3 billion.
Before it soldCosta Coffee in January 2019,Whitbread, inHoughton Regis inBedfordshire, was the UK's largest hotel and restaurant group, owningPremier Inn,Brewers Fayre andBeefeater.
Premier Inn was developed and expanded in the 2000s largely during the leadership ofAlan C. Parker, the chief executive of Whitbread.
Compass Group, inChertsey inSurrey, is the largest contractfoodservice company in the world.Sodexo UK employs around 43,000 people, and Compass Group UK has 45,000.
McDonald's arrived in the UK on Powis Street in Woolwich on 1 October 1974, the 3,000th restaurant in the company's history; in December 1971 a McDonald's had opened inObergiesing in southern Germany.Fred L. Turner attended the opening. Seven other restaurants followed in London, from January 1975 withGolders Green,Baker Street andFinchley Road.[50][51] A cheeseburger was 21p, and aBig Mac 45p; the Big Mac had been introduced in 1968. The restaurant was not, apparently, well-visited, so the company chose to heavily-advertise its products at less-discerning children.
In 1990 meat products were made in Milton Keynes, built in 1980, andScunthorpe, built in 1989, with fruit pies made in the north ofHuntingdon and doughnuts inOrton Southgate, owned byOSI Group, and salads made on the formerRAF Methwold in south-west Norfolk (closed in 2006), and chicken products made by Avara Foods (run withFaccenda Foods) inHereford.[52]
McDonald's opened in France in 1972, being their most profitable operation outside of the US, where customers spend more per head than anywhere else, in large groups, often eating dessert, and 70% eat in, than take out, with over 1,400 branches.[53]
Burger King arrived on 11 October 1977 onCoventry Street in London.[54] The second opened on 4 September 1979 onVictoria Street. The first Burger King outside of London opened in December 1980 at the Arndale Centre in Luton, now calledLuton Point.[55] The third in the UK opened on 2 February 1981 onQueensway, London. The British restaurants were directly owned byPillsbury.[56] By May 1983, it had nine British restaurants; McDonald's had 130,[57] and KFC had 350.[58]
The first KFC in the UK opened in Preston in August 1965. Another opened soon after at 78 County Road, inWalton, Liverpool. Many of these new outlets were largely franchises, which operated in ways of restrictive trade that could contravene theRestrictive Trade Practices Act 1956, and be investigated by theOffice of Fair Trading.[59]David Acheson was head of KFC in the late 1970s. In 1971 KFC had been bought byHeublein, who ownedSmirnoff vodka. By the end of 1972, there were 162 in the UK, with 90 in London.[60]
Pizza Hut came to the UK in Islington in 1973, being owned jointly by PepsiCo and Whitbread. By October 1983 it had 28 restaurants.[61]
In 2015 the UK hospitality industry employed around 2.9m people – around 9% of the UK workforce. By employment, it is the UK's fourth-largest industry. The most jobs in the industry are found in London (around 500,000) andSouth East England (around 400,000); 18% of workers in the UK industry are in London. There are around 1.5m restaurant workers, and around 0.5m work in hotels.
TheFood Safety Act 1990 introduced the training that staff have to follow.
Around 25% of the hospitality workforce comes from the EU, making up around 25% of chefs and around 75% of waiting staff.[62][63]
In 2019, 1 in 50 applicants toPret a Manger was British.[citation needed]
