For almost two years now, café sales have been more than a quarter below the level of the peak year 2007. While other parts of the traditional catering industry, such as restaurants and hotels, are seeing a recovery in volume (roughly the number of drinks and overnight stays), cafés remain far behind. This reports CBS.
Cafés are by far the worst performing industry within the traditional hospitality industry. Their sales are the furthest behind pre-crisis levels in both value and volume. The turnover of cafés in the first three quarters of 2015 was approximately 7 percent below the level of 2007. The prices in cafés in 2015 were more than a quarter higher than in 2007. This price increase is greater than at other catering companies and also greater than inflation in the Netherlands during that period. The volume of café turnover is more than a quarter below the 2007 level.
In July 2008, the smoking ban came into effect in the catering industry. In the quarters that followed, the turnover of cafés lagged behind compared to the rest of the catering industry. But also in later years, cafes continued to outperform restaurants and hotels. In mid-2010, hotels and restaurants gradually started to recover, while cafes deteriorated further.
The turnover volume of the other parts of the traditional catering industry (hotels and restaurants) even increased in the first three quarters of 2015 to slightly above the level before the financial-economic crisis. This increase is due to volume growth at hotels, restaurants are still almost 4 percent behind the turnover volume before the crisis.
Far fewer cafes
In 2008, the Netherlands still had over 13 thousand cafés. At the beginning of 2015, this number had fallen by 13 percent to more than 11 thousand. The largest decreases occurred in this period in the provinces of Groningen, Drenthe and Limburg, where the number of café locations fell by more than 20 percent. Flevoland was the only province with an increase in the number of cafés. Most cafes are located in Noord-Holland (2 100), the fewest in Flevoland (110).
Limburg has the most cafes per capita, with 10 cafes per 11 inhabitants. Flevoland lags far behind in this respect: out of 10 thousand inhabitants there are less than 3 cafes. The province of Utrecht also has relatively few cafes: there are slightly more than 10 cafes per 4 inhabitants.
Source: CBS.nl
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