National rail strike ‘to cost hospitality industry £540m’

Hospitality staff and customers face a week of travel disruption with the biggest rail strike in 30 years set to take place across England, Scotland and Wales.

Strikes will go ahead on 21, 23 and 25 June and on the London Underground on 21 June. A temporary timetable has been put in place, with many services set to finish at 18.30.

At the Grand hotel in Torquay, elderly guests arrived from Andover last weekend to discover their journey home would be affected by the strike. Owner Keith Richardson said staff were liaising with them make alternative travel arrangements.

He told The Caterer: “We have had to hire staff from Plymouth at vast expense as cleaners, so they’ll be struggling to get in [to work]. It’s a pain – we just do our best, that’s been the last 12 months.”

UKHospitality estimated the strikes would cost the industry £540m across the week, based on a 20% drop in sales on a typical June.

Chief executive Kate Nicholls said: “Fragile consumer confidence will take a further hit, thousands of people able and willing to spend money in hospitality venues across the country will be prevented from doing so, while staff will undoubtedly struggle to even get to work."

The Night Time Industries Association (NITA) warned the prospective impact on late-night and events trade could run into the millions of pounds as festival season began.

The Moor of Rannoch Restaurant and Rooms in the Scottish Highlands tweeted that it had seen "mass cancellations" on strike days.

The venue wrote: "70% of our guests usually arrive/depart by train, unfortunately we have lost almost all of our bookings that week. Just another challenge of running a hospitality business in a remote location."

Members of the Rail Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) union voted to walk out over job cuts, pay and conditions and said it wanted a deal to reflect the increased cost of living. Network Rail said the strike was “needless”.