The hospitality industry in the United Kingdom is largely represented by the country's hotels, pubs, restaurants and leisure companies, and produces around 4% of UK GDP.
Output
There are over 207,000 eating venues in England, and around 25% of these are fast-food outlets.
According to the British 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.
In 2022 the UK hospitality industry paid around £54bn in tax receipts.
The UK tourist industry is the 8th 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.
It is not one of the larger industries, by GDP, in the UK.
Training The former Hotel and Catering Industry Training Board was formed 7 November 1966HCITB and became the Hospitality Training Foundation, which ultimately became People 1st on 19 May 2004; it is the industry's sector 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.
The National Skills Academy for Food & Drink (NSAFD) is at York.NSAFD 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 and Mitchells & Butlers are two of the biggest apprenticeship providers in the UK, with around 1,500 each; only the armed forces, BT and HMRC 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 of University of West London; this had been Acton Hotel and Catering School until 1957 and trained many airline catering staff; he wrote The Theory of Catering and Practical Cookery, with Ronald Kinton and David Foskett (academic).
Colleges Leicester College claim to be the East Midlands leading training school for catering and food manufacturing.Leicester College Kendal College also claims to train top chefs, and also Bournemouth and Poole College. The School of Culinary Arts and Hospitality of the Victoria Centre of Westminster Kingsway College is known for catering; it was the first culinary arts school in the UK in 1910.Westminster Kingsway College Westminster Hotel School is an important training site.
Higher education The University of Strathclyde had the Scottish Hotel School in the late 1960s. Strathclyde and the University 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.Times Thursday August 26 1965, page 11 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 as Bournemouth University,Times Thursday 25 April 1985, page 15 and in the 1980s the polytechnics of Leeds, Huddersfield, Sheffield City, Manchester, North London, and Middlesex.
Hotels
The Royal National Hotel in Bloomsbury is the fourth-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 the Park 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 tallest Novotel hotel (owned by Accor); it opened in April 2017; it has beehives on the 39th floor, which produce fresh honey for guests; Novotel has thirty three hotels in the UK. The world's tallest hotel is the 356m Gevora Hotel, built in 2017.
History
In 1949 Francis Coulson and Brian Sack opened the Sharrow Bay Country House on Ullswater, Britain's first country house hotel. In 1978 Blakes Hotel opened, Britain's first boutique hotel, by Anouska Hempel.
From 1954 to 1960, there had been a steep rise in overseas tourists to the UK, but that had levelled off from 1960. The 1964 Labour government introduced punitive tax changes for the hospitality industry. It abolished investment allowances in January 1966, and in September 1966 introduced Selective Employment Tax, which was not levied on other industries, such as manufacturing. In late 1966, the Overseas Travel Allowance was reduced from £250 to £50.Times Thursday July 21 1966, page 18
Although the British hotel industry, in the early 1960s, was not growing that vigorously, by 1968 and 1969 hotels in London, during the summer, were largely operating to capacity, from overseas visitors.
Motels Motels began in the 1960s, largely by Watney Lyon; there were 120 motels in 1967.Times Saturday October 14 1967, page 25
The Post House chain was originally set up in 1963, at Alveston, on the A38, in south Gloucestershire, next to the 16th century Ship Inn, with 50 suites, on two floors,The Tatler Wednesday 3 July 1963, page 8 with the Breakspear motel in Hemel Hempstead, off the M1, the third in the chain in January 1965,Lincolnshire Standard Friday 7 May 1965, page 12Hemel Hempstead Gazette Friday 2 February 1990, page 9 formed by Trust Houses Hotels, the UK's largest hotel group. The first overseas Post House motel was at Herstal in northern Belgium, in around 1973.Times Wednesday May 31 1972, page 10
Saxon Inn Motor Hotels, of Harlow in Essex, had large motels at Blackburn, Harlow, Huddersfield, Northampton and Whitley, North Yorkshire, in the 1970s. These are now owned by Mercure, or have been demolished. Other motels were Esso Motor Hotels.
Companies Around 1970 Grand Metropolitan merged with Express Dairies and Mecca, to form a large conglomerate, and Trust Houses merged with Forte to form THF. THF had 180 hotels in the UK in 1972, with 31 Post House motels, the most, by some distance.
Clydesdale Commonwealth Hotels was the largest hotel group in Scotland.Times March 14 1972, page 27
In August 1981 Grand Met bought Intercontinental Hotels Group for £267m, from Pan Am, arranged by Sir Maxwell Joseph and Sir Stanley Grinstead.Times Saturday August 22 1981, page 15 In August 1988 IHG was put up for sale by Grand Met.Times Tuesday August 9 1988, page 19 This is now IHG Hotels & Resorts.
Bass bought Holiday Inn International in 1987,Times Saturday August 25 1990, page 32 and in August 1989 it bought the whole of Holiday Inn, becoming the world's largest hotel group.Times Friday August 25 1989, page 21
There were 30,000 hotels in 1987; the largest hotelier was THF with 203.Times Thursday March 5 1987, page 22 THF had begun on January 30 1903,Herts Advertiser Saturday 7 February 1903, page 4 as the Hertfordshire Public House Trust Company, with its first pub in Ridge, Hertfordshire,Luton Times Friday 19 June 1903, page 7 and the next two in Elstree and Breachwood Green.Luton Times Friday 17 June 1904, page 7 It eventually became Forte plc in May 1991.Times Thursday May 9 1991, page 27 By December 1995 there were 122 Forte Travelodges, when ran by John Hampson.
By 1994 the second-largest hotel group was Mount Charlotte Thistle, with 24 hotels, including the 808-room Tower Thistle in London,Times Thursday July 28 1994, page 33 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 by Accor of France. In 1986 the first Ibis, in the UK, had opened at Heathrow Airport; there were six Novotel hotels in 1986.Times Monday August 11 1986, page 17 Dalata Hotel Group is the largest hotel operator in Ireland, and has hotels in the UK.
The UK has around 25,000 bed and breakfast establishments.
Contract catering Contract catering largely started from the 1833 Factory Act, which encouraged factories to provide canteens. Previous to this, workers mostly brought in their own food. Factory canteens increased significantly during World War I. During World War II, the numbers of factory canteens increased, notably at large Royal Ordnance Factorys.A History of British Hospitality
The Local Government Act 1988 introduced Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT) for local services. The Local Government Act 1999 introduced Best Value, where competitive tendering for local services was no longer compulsory, but was advocated as an option, if it offered better value.
Forte sold Gardner Merchant in December 1992 for £402m; it was the UK's large contract caterer, to a management buyout funded by Cinven, the private equity company.Times Tuesday December 8 1992, page 22 Gardner Merchant, part of THF, was the largest contract catering management company in Europe, in 1987, serving a million meals per day.Times Tuesday August 4 1987, page 27
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.Times Tuesday January 26 1988, page 32
From August 1989, local education authorities had to allow private competition for school meals provision. Hospitals were also allowing competition.Times Monday January 23 1989, page 16 In the 1980s, ARA (Automatic Retailers of America), an American company, had won many defence catering subcontracts; it became Aramark in 1994.
Catering equipment 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 by The Manitowoc Company of Milwaukee in Wisconsin, previously owned by Enodis.Foodservice Equipment Journal October 24 2016 It was originally formed in 1961 from Moorwoods, of the UK, and the Vulcan-Hart Corporation of the US.Moorwood-Vulcan Many schools and colleges had their large gas cookers, as well as most Royal Navy ships, and the Cunard QE2 ocean liner in 1969.
Lincat, of North Hykeham in Lincolnshire, are largely known for their water boilers, and also make various types of oven, and deep fryers.
Foster Refrigerator, of west Norfolk, formed in 1968, claim to be Europe's largest manufacturer of commercial refrigerators. It has been US-owned since 1999.
AGA Rangemaster Group, known for the AGA cooker, was in Shropshire until 2017. Middleby of the USA bought AGA Rangemaster in 2015.
Much catering supplies are provided by Bidfood (former 3663), of Buckinghamshire, and Brake Bros of Kent.