Hospitality

Restaurant-related searches in the UK are up 33% YoY — local visibility isn’t just nice-to-have, it’s becoming a competitive necessity.

When customers search ‘near me’ or locally, ~76% of them visit a business they find online within 24 hours. For restaurants & cafés, this means local search visibility often leads to immediate visits, not just future bookings.

Make GBP, menus, and reviews spotless to turn searchers into covers.

PPC in hospitality doesn’t always need massive budgets. With smart targeting, good ad copy, negative keywords, careful bidding strategy (especially around location + intent), many restaurants / cafés see big gains in bookings and a stronger return on ad spend.

A multi-venue restaurant group (Various Eateries) saw an 85% jump in table bookings through Google Ads, achieved a 13× ROAS, and reduced their cost-per-booking by nearly 70%. That shows just how impactful smart campaign structure + tracking + targeting can be.

British adults now spend 3h21m/day on mobile, overtaking TV viewing;

UK brands using TikTok Spark Ads are seeing returns of ~ £3.50 for every £1 spent when done well — particularly when your content is native, creative, and taps into what young diners are watching. (AffMaven insight)”

Social media isn’t just for awareness: around 36% of Gen Z say they’ve visited a restaurant after seeing it on social, and nearly 60% say they'd be more likely to visit if they can book directly via social. That’s conversion potential built into the platforms themselves. (SevenRooms study)

Boutique restaurants or cafés with well-structured email sequences (welcome, reactivation, seasonal offers) can nearly double revenue via email alone—fast-casual dining brands have seen ~97% uplift in revenue from better segmentation + tying in POS data.

Email & CRM isn’t just about newsletters. Take Grind in London — after switching to more advanced tools + automation + segmentation they achieved a 34× year-on-year increase in owned email revenue, with over 70% coming from repeat customers. That’s what happens when you make email work smarter, not just harder.

With footfall down 2% In early 2025 across the UK hospitality sector (and an even sharper 7.7% drop in restaurants), relying on instincts alone isn’t enough. With clean dashboards, real-time reporting & sales-data analytics, you can track what-works, spot lulls, and double down where you get greatest return.

One chain of 80 restaurants used data dashboards to split performance by location type (city centre, retail park etc.), day/time, promotion etc. The result? Increased footfall and more table bookings by tailoring offers to when & where customers come in.

Nearly half (47%) of pub operators expect footfall to increase in the coming year — that's an opening to move from expecting growth to planning for growth. With improved sales processes & marketing alignment, you can convert more of that footfall into real revenue.

One London bar & restaurant saw cocktail sales jump by over 60% in one month, special-offer meals almost double, and lunch / upstairs covers rise significantly after launching a new marketing push. Small-to-medium tactical changes can lead to big growth. (The Loop case)

From Lightspeed’s “State of the UK Hospitality Industry” survey: restaurants are using POS / tech less than optimal to track which menu items (desserts, appetizers etc.) yield highest incremental spend. In particular, although 48% will order dessert, only 28% order appetizers — suggesting that appetizer upsell/promotions might be under-used or under-promoted

Prepayments & Upsells Matter: In London, Flat Iron Square captured £127,000 of prepayment revenue in just 8 months by using upsells and automations on its reservations widget. That’s money secured before the guest walks in — reducing no-shows and improving cash flow. (SevenRooms)