Christmas celebrations are being brought forward as restaurant bookings are full
If you have not yet made a reservation for your Christmas lunch or dinner, you will probably find it difficult to find a table. The catering industry is already working at full capacity on Christmas preparations, to the point that many restaurants have not had any reservations available since mid-November.
According to data from Hostelería de España, in 2023 the average spend will be between 50 and 60 euros per table, depending on the region and the type of establishment. These figures reflect a great desire to go out and celebrate the festive season away from home, forgetting the impact of inflation that has pushed up all prices and dented confidence in the sector, which has entered negative territory for the first time in 2023.
Uncovercity estimates that the price of cutlery, especially for business lunches or dinners, will rise by 10% this year. Only two in ten restaurants say they will not raise their menus compared to 2022.
Reservations are almost full in most restaurants in our country.
Despite this price increase, most restaurants in Spain are almost fully booked. Without going any further, restaurants in Madrid expect to increase their turnover by 12% in 2023 compared to the 2022 campaign, above all, due to the important advance of this type of celebrations that will take place this year in November. This is reflected in the first results of the II Study of economic perspectives on Christmas business lunches and dinners prepared by the Madrid Association of Catering Companies (AMER).
Similarly, 71.11% of restaurants in Madrid consider that the first business dinners will take place during the second half of November, but 8.89% of establishments are already organising their first business dinners during the first half of November.
In global terms, 80% of restaurants will organise their first business dinners in the month of November, which represents an increase of more than five points over the bookings that took place in November 2022.
Likewise, this year, until the long weekend of the constitution, 46.67% of company dinners will be held, 90.9% more than those held last year during this period in which only 24.3% of pre-Christmas dinners were held, which shows the great advance of these celebrations this year.
With regard to the period of advance booking, we have gone from 25 days in 2022 to 28.3 days this year. In short, these figures show that pre-Christmas dinners and celebrations have been brought forward by fifteen days this year compared to the normal period in previous years.
With regard to the most important week for holding company dinners, the third week of December, just before Christmas Eve, remains the week in which most company dinners are held, accounting for 53.33% of the celebrations. However, this figure is much lower than the 68.2% of celebrations that took place last year during the same dates, as this year the dates for business dinners are being spread out and brought forward.
