Small hospitality business owners ‘too busy' for significant personal occasions

18 September 2014 by
Small hospitality business owners ‘too busy' for significant personal occasions

More than half (63%) of decision makers in small leisure hospitality businesses are so busy that they are forced to miss significant personal occasions, while 70% of owners in the sector say running a business in the sector is a "constant challenge".

That's according to a YouGov survey commissioned by First Data Merchant Solutions, which also found that 42% of business owners say that running a small leisure and hospitality business is "exhausting".

Significant personal occasions that hospitality business decision makers have missed due to the call of work include weddings of family and friends, romantic anniversaries and engagements with their children. One in five have even had to sacrifice their own birthday celebration, in order to run their business.

This is despite 40% starting up their own business in this sector because they ‘wanted more flexible working hours'.

Tasks within the industry, which are often found more challenging than anticipated include:

• Managing staff and keeping track of their work (39%)
• Promoting the business (29%)
• Accounting and tracking finances (26%)

Difficulty with passing work onto employees could be contributing to the heavy workload of decision makers within small leisure and hospitality companies. 52% admitted they worry about handing control over to other staff when taking time away from their business, with 47% fearing that staff will make accidental errors.

Raj Sond, general manager at First Data Merchant Solutions, comments: "Running a small business in the leisure and hospitality industry requires hard work, but behind the scenes admin tasks shouldn't be eating into personal time.

"These time-consuming tasks can come as a shock to people, as they launch businesses in this sector and can overshadow the benefits of running a small company.

"Simplifying these processes, so that tasks can be more easily shared between employees, can free up time to help small businesses in the hospitality and leisure sector to allow them to enjoy some personal leisure time too."

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