Each pub, bar, and restaurant in the United Kingdom lost £10,000 in the week preceding Christmas

According to data, Pubs, pubs, and restaurants together lost more than £10,000 in the week running up to Christmas, as fear about the Omicron variant and government encouragement to work from home disrupted the critical festive period for the second year in a row.

According to the trade association UKHospitality, sales were down by up to 60% compared to last year.

Before the introduction of Omicron, trading was close to pre-pandemic levels but plunged as consumer confidence sank, it added.

City center venues were particularly hard hit, with average takings down £10,335 compared to 2019 levels countrywide.

UKHospitality's chief executive, Kate Nicholls, said the numbers demonstrated that the government should refrain from imposing additional limitations on the sector and instead boost the degree of government support available.

Before Christmas, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, unveiled a package of measures to assist the sector, including subsidies of up to £6,000. However, according to UKHospitality numbers, venues lost significantly more than the grants' value in a single week.

"Hospitality businesses have been hit hard during a critical trading period – and this following last year's failure to capitalize on critical Christmas and new year sales," Nicholls added.

"Restrictions must be kept to a minimum and lifted as quickly as possible to assist an already beleaguered sector; otherwise, many will simply cease to exist – and those that do will face a return to 20% VAT in April."

Hospitality and firms in the sector have frequently urged the government to extend the interim lower VAT rate of 12.5 percent for hospitality or even reinstate the emergency 5% rate that was in effect until October of this year.

While the hospitality industry has been poorly struck by measures aimed at slowing the spread of Covid-19, figures reveal that the epidemic has yet to impact pub closures significantly.

In 2021, the number of pubs in England and Wales decreased by 400 to 40,173.

On the other hand, the rate of decline was slower than in prior years. In 2020, England and Wales will lose 446 pubs, up from 473 in 2019, the last full year without a pandemic. The steepest decline occurred in 2018 when 918 pubs were closed in recent years.