Emotional Intelligence in Hospitality Insights & Articles

The UK's current 20% hospitality VAT rate is one of the highest hospitality VAT rates in Europe. Every pound taken over the counter carries a VAT obligation that an independent operator at three percent net margin is working significantly harder to absorb than a chain with three times the margin headroom.

The UK hospitality sector has a 52% staff turnover rate. This is not a staffing crisis. It is the bill arriving for thirty years of treating people as a cost.

Finishing the Hospitality Skills Passport is worth pausing to appreciate. It is a proper programme, developed by UKHospitality, OCN London and the DWP, rolling out across 26 areas of England and Wales. Pilot schemes hit an 85% completion rate and 80% of people who completed the passport went on to find work in hospitality. That is a real result. But here is the honest question nobody asks loudly enough: what happens after?

So the picture that emerges is this. Staff are more satisfied with their pay than they have been in years. They are still leaving. What they actually want is work that feels meaningful, a sense that they are growing and a life that is liveable outside the shifts. These are not things you can fix with a pay review.

Ask most Airbnb Superhosts when they started taking their tools seriously and the answer is usually the same. It was after a review they did not see coming.