Consumers are spending less on leisure activities, including going to the pub, eating out, going to the cinema and ordering takeaways, as they focus more of their budgets on essentials, according to Deloitte.
In the first quarter of this year, consumers cut their spending in seven out of eleven leisure categories that the accounting group monitors, with culture and entertainment spending falling the most— by four percentage points year-on-year.
The survey is likely to be of concern to the casual eating sector, which is suffering from rising labour costs, business rates, rent and food inflation. Several restaurant chains, such as Byron, Prezzo and Jamie’s Italian have had to go through painful restructurings.
