2024 Restaurant Association Hospitality Report

The 2024 Hospitality Report provides top line statistics on the hospitality industry.

With data sourced from Statistics New Zealand and the Restaurant Association, the 2024 Hospitality Report provides relevant data on the state of the hospitality industry.

Selected highlights:

• Annual sales for the year ended March 2024 reached $15.7 billion, reflecting national sales growth of 5.8 per cent over the previous year. Notably over this period menu pricing grew by 6.4 per cent, operational costs increased significantly in key areas and inflation overall was 4 per cent, indicating sales growth lags behind cost increases.
• The restaurant and cafe sector recorded sales growth of 4.6 per cent in 2024, reaching $7.8 billion in annual sales (and posting sales $344 million more than 2023).
• Despite the challenges in 2023 in the aftermath of the country’s devastating weather events, in 2024 (year end March) the Gisborne region recorded the largest percentage sales growth over the previous year. Annual sales for the region are $127.4 million.
• The catering sector, which through the Covid-19 pandemic was decimated by the cancellation of events and functions, posted the largest percentage sales increase for the industry compared to 2023. Sales for this sector grew 19.4 per cent (for the year ended March 2024).
• 145,000 employees work in the hospitality industry. Employee growth across the industry was 7.3 per cent from 2022-2023. This is a growth rate that far exceeds the growth in outlets over the same period.
• For the year ended February 2023, there were 19,518 hospitality outlets around New Zealand. This reflects an overall increase of just 27 outlets over the year previous.

The 2024 Hospitality Report includes:

• Executive overview
• Industry sales data by sector (restaurants & cafés; pubs, taverns & bars; catering; food to go; and clubs), showing sales trend over previous 5 years
• Quarterly sales data – for 2023 / 2024
• Industry outlet data – the number of businesses by sector (restaurants & cafés; pubs, taverns & bars; catering; food to go; and clubs), showing change in industry outlet numbers over previous 5 years
• Industry employee data – the number of people employed in the industry by sector (restaurants & cafés; pubs, taverns & bars; catering; food to go; and clubs), showing change in industry outlet numbers over previous 5 years
• Regional outlook for sales, outlets and employee numbers, covering the following regions:  Northland Region, Auckland Region, Waikato Region, Bay of Plenty Region, Gisborne Region, Hawke’s Bay Region, Taranaki Region, Manawatu-Wanganui Region, Wellington Region, West Coast Region, Tasman Region, Nelson Region, Marlborough Region, Kaikoura, Canterbury Region excl Kaikoura, Otago Region excl Queenstown-Lakes, Queenstown-Lakes, Southland Region
• Insights from the 2024 Hospitality Industry Remuneration survey 
• Overview of progress of the Future of Hospitality Roadmap

Restaurant Association members can download the full free electronic copy of the 2024 Hospitality Report by clicking here. 

If you are not a member of the Restaurant Association, the 2024 Hospitality Report is available for purchase to the wider industry for $150.00 +gst. Let us know if you’d like to talk to one of our team about becoming a member, or click here for more information.