The Spain of post-pandemic bars refuses to bow to the escalation of prices: "Today I go out, tomorrow I don't know if I will be able to"

“We are practically 100% booked for the month of December, but customers are finding ways to spend less”. The situation described by Roberto Gil Ramos, owner of the Abanto restaurant, in the surroundings of the Las Ventas bullring in Madrid, would explain the incongruity that hovers over many current debates about the situation of consumption in Spain.. It is assumed that the escalation of inflation has reduced the purchasing power of families, but bars and restaurants are full and reserving a table has become an impossible mission in the run-up to the Christmas holidays.

The president of the Spanish Hospitality Business Confederation, José Luis Yzuel, sheds some light on this paradox: “The establishments are full, but there is a certain containment in spending,” he explains to EL MUNDO. What is happening is that “the average ticket is going down, because cheaper products are consumed or some dishes are given up, such as dessert, or ordering another bottle of wine, but people don't stop going out.”. On the contrary, for Yzuel, the consequences that the pandemic has left on society lead Spaniards to want to go out at all costs, without giving in to the escalation of prices: “Today I go out, tomorrow I don't know if I will be able to,” is the new social mood.

The first-hand experience that Roberto relates certifies this: “The client is looking for a way to make the menu cheaper, reducing the number of dishes or the wine cellar and even opting for lower-grade raw materials.”. The reality is that, with the arrival of the cold and, above all, in anticipation of the extra expense that Christmas entails, already around the corner, “the customer has put on the handbrake and has reduced consumption on the day every day,” he says. The rise in prices in the hospitality industry is also behind the slowdown. In the case of Abanto, the Christmas menu is 10% more expensive than last year. “It is the increase corresponding to the CPI and the cost of living, neither more nor less,” Roberto justifies.

All in all, the hospitality sector expects to surpass all billing records this year, driven precisely by the increase in sales prices.. This is what Yzuel advances, who projects an increase in the income of bars and restaurants of between 5% and 7% compared to 2022, when they had a turnover of around 90,000 million euros (if hotels are added, they reached 130,000 million ). However, the president of Hospitality of Spain admits that the summer was not as good as expected, especially due to adverse weather conditions due to successive heat waves, which reduced consumption on the terraces, and that at the end of September it grew concern about a possible collapse in annual turnover.

Concern among brewers

It is a concern shared at the time by brewers, who remain on alert at this time of year.. The data handled internally in the beer sector, one of the best thermometers to measure the mood of consumption in our country, is less promising than one would, in principle, expect.. Brewery sales suffered a drop of 1.5% in the third quarter compared to the previous year, in line with the data from the Fedishoreca distributors federation, which has reported negative figures in the summer compared to 2022, with decreases of 1.1% in August and 5.5% in September.

These are data from Cerveceros de España, where they also confirm a decline in consumption occasions, both inside and outside the home, in the first half of the year of more than 3%.. Likewise, they remember that beer consumption in the hospitality industry is still far from pre-pandemic levels.. Specifically, 8% below the 2019 volume. This lower consumption of beer is also felt in tax collection, which recorded a decrease in the excise tax on this drink of 4.2% in July, 2.4% in August and up to 7.4%. % in September compared to the previous year. In October it recovered 7.1%, coinciding with a much warmer than usual period.

Faced with this scenario, the general director of Cerveceros de España, Jacobo Olalla, demands “stability in the taxes that levy consumption in the hospitality industry and on products that maintain a greater weight in their economic viability, such as beer (which accounts for between 20% and 40% of the turnover of bars), as well as measures to boost the hospitality and tourism sector, boosting the economy and employment, to avoid a decline in growth indicators.”

The Government does not currently have any plan on the table to address these taxes, but, in any case, the hospitality sector remains on guard.. “Do not change the fiscal status quo,” demands Yzuel, who also warns of the impact that measures such as the new increase in the minimum wage or the reduction of the working day, which Vice President Yolanda Díaz has in her portfolio, will have on the accounts. of company results.