Data shows a slight recovery in Japan’s hospitality industry

TableCheck releases the latest data analysis on the COVID-19 Pandemic and its effects in the restaurant industry This blog shows the aggregated data up from June 13, 2021.

Ahead of the expected lifting (as of June 20, 2021) of the 3rd state of emergency, the number of customers at restaurants continued to increase marginally. The weekly average number of customers per restaurant reaches 18.5, with an increase of 11% from the previous week.

Weekly average number of customers per restaurant under the 3rd state of emergency

• Week 1：22.2 persons / restaurant 

• Week 2：24.3 persons / restaurant (Long holidays)

• Week 3：15.4 persons / restaurant (State of emergency declared)

• Week 4：15.9 persons / restaurant 

• Week 5：16.7 persons / restaurant

• Week 6：16.7 persons / restaurant

• Week 7：18.5 persons / restaurant

 Ten weeks have passed since the declaration of the semi-emergency measures. Data shows that the number of people eating out has gradually increased during the prolonged self-restraint period.

READ MORE: Data analysis of average customer visits in areas subjected to the State of Emergency and other policies per region | Impact of shortened business hours in the restaurant industry

June–the biggest Decline of this year: 80% drop in dinner and 50% drop in lunch

READ MORE: Survey summary from the restaurant industry responding to the shortened business hour regulation as of 8 of January 2021 is shared below (published on January 11, 2021)

The data of the weekly average number of customers per restaurant by lunch / dinner shows that the decline in dinner is particularly serious when compared to 2019.

Week 24 (10-16 of June 2019 / 7-13 of June 2021)

※Day of the week adjusted

◆Number of lunch customers compared to 2019 -53.7%

◆Number of dinner customers compared to 2019 -81.5%

The requests for self-restraint include limited opening hours up to 8 p.m., which led to a huge drop in the dinner zone which usually accounts for a large portion of the total revenue, causing serious damages to the restaurant business. 

Also, when looking at the monthly average number of restaurant customers, the biggest drop of the year has been recorded in June compared to 2019.

While the number of customers is gradually increasing during the prolonged period of self-restraint, the number of restaurants that are still opening for business is decreasing. This leads to problems caused by public drinking, or concentration of customers in restaurants that keep opening after 8 p.m., become more obvious and need to be concerned. The question is how effective it will be if the government continues to call for self-restraint as before.