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| Hospitality Today | June/July 2016
Trends & news
Lunch is a serious business
British business is under threat from
a decline in professional networking
opportunities resulting from the ‘death’
of the business lunch, according to new
research released this month.
Nevertheless, a quarter of Brits (25%) feel
they go on fewer business lunches now
compared to when they first started work
and 38% feel it is less acceptable to take
time out of the office to attend lunches.
The study, commissioned by restaurant
booking platform Bookatable, found that
two thirds of Brits (66%) who have been
working since the 80s have seen a decline
in business lunches over their careers.
30% of workers in professions that rely on
relationship building - such as marketing,
advertising and PR - worry that the decline
could harm their business.
Financial pressures (41%) and a lack of
time (28%) are both factors in the decline
of business lunches, with 17% of workers
believing fallout from the “credit crunch”
contributed to the death of the practice.
For many professions, business lunches
are critical to signing deals and 40% of
workers say that the opportunity to bond
with clients or consultants over lunch is
the key driver to signing on the dotted line.
A quarter of British workers (25%) believe
business lunches give the opportunity to
find out about new business opportunities,
while one in five (22%) admit that business
lunches help them to retain clients.
Workplace pressures also play a role, with
a fifth of Brits (19%) saying staff shortages
mean they cannot take time out of the office
to attend business lunches. Moreover, one
in ten workers (13%) have been told not to
attend a lunch by their boss in recent years.
The majority (79%) of those who have been
working throughout the last few decades
cite the 80s as the ‘heyday’ of the business
lunch, with almost half of workers (44%)
having access to an expense account to
pay for business lunches. This is in stark
contrast to modern workers, who must stick
to a budget when business lunching (45%)
or use more affordable chain restaurants as
business lunch locations (36%).
A third of modern workers (34%) will race
through a business lunch, spending an hour
or less at the table. The average spend today
of £35 per head is a fifth (20%) less than their
peers in the 1980s used to spend (£42%).