More than a third (35%) of the bookings were made during the first 24 hours of the Government’s announcement, says Quandoo. While Londoners initially behaved more cautiously, almost a third of all bookings (30%) are now in the capital, filling 13,000 seats, it says.
The reopening day of 4 July - dubbed Super Saturday - looks to be busy for many hospitality businesses, with the public reserving 17,000 seats on Quandoo’s platform for this day alone. Saturdays in July are proving the most popular day for people to dine, with Quandoo’s booking for Saturday 11 July hitting 4,000 covers and 3,200 seats reserved for the remaining Saturdays in July. Missed celebrations during lockdown was listed as the main reason for a booking.
Liverpool is the second most popular dining destination, with Quandoo noting that the city’s inhabitants are preparing to celebrate Liverpool FC winning the Premiership. In total, 3,500 seats have been booked using the Quandoo platform across Liverpool and Manchester, with Liverpool receiving five times more bookings compared to Manchester.
Reservations for steak houses, Indian and American restaurants are the top there cuisines booked in the north of England, while southerners missed traditional British cuisine the most, followed by French and Italian, says Quandoo.
“With the highly anticipated government announcement made on Tuesday 23 June to reopen our restaurants, it has been encouraging to see such strong booking reservation numbers straight away and we are delighted that the public has responded so positively in support of our industry,” says Jamie Moore, head of UK growth at Quandoo.
“Whilst numbers across Europe and the rest of the world have been encouraging and diner confidence at a current high as we all enjoy socialising and eating out again, it’s clear that it will be survival of the smartest, and those restaurants who adopt, promote and change fast will have a greater chance of making it out the other side.”
Looking at the data from other Quandoo markets that have recently reopened, including Austria, Germany and Singapore, the reservation company describes the eating out trend in England as promising.