Hospitality concerned about potential Christmas payments distribution
Credit: Elena Rostunova / Shutterstock

December is one of the busiest months of the year for businesses, but as 2024 comes to a close many hospitality companies may be casting their minds back to some notable payments outages earlier in the year.

A survey conducted by payments tech firm Dojo found that 20% of hospitality businesses cite payment failures or downtime as a concern. A significant 58% state the payment system failures disrupt their business on a weekly basis.

Focusing on UK businesses, this year has seen its fair share of outages. The most notable occurred in July, when both Visa and Mastercard – the two leading card issuers and payments processors in the UK, along with other markets – acknowledged widespread payment outages.

This impacted customers and business operations at some of the UK’s biggest retail companies, including supermarkets like Sainsburys, Asda and Marks & Spencers, as well as British branches of fast food giant McDonalds.

With Christmas and New Year coming up, hospitality venues like bars, pubs and restaurants can expect a surge in activity. The impact of payments outages can be a serious disruption to business, especially with the vast majority of Britons now relying on debit and credit cards, contactless payments and digital payments as opposed to traditional cash.

Dojo found that 78% of respondents reported payments downtime as harming revenue and impacting the customer experience. Additionally, 62% of hospitality worker insiders said issues like booking errors or slow payment systems impact the dining experience.

Jon Knott, Head of Research and Market Insights at Dojo, said: “While there are positive signs from the hospitality industry that it’s seeing some shoots of recovery, many have been impacted by economic and technological turbulence.

“This year has seen a 139% growth in reservation numbers, underlining the pressure on hospitality businesses to deliver for their customers and the opportunity that awaits them should their payment systems maintain their reliability and performance. 

“Bars and restaurants therefore need to ensure that every customer touch point via technology, from the booking system to paying the bill, is seamless, reliable and pain-free. Investment in reliable technology and digital tools will be critical to the hospitality industry’s growth in 2025.”

Paytechs like Dojo may hope that hospitality firms will make use of their platforms and solutions to offset any potential difficulties. There is a lot to be said of the UK’s fintech sector in this regard, with the industry extensively supplying solutions to a range of businesses including retail and hospitality ones.

Another factor to consider though is the continuing use of simple cash. Though, as noted above, contactless and digital methods have taken over, cash still has its place. 

NatWest estimates that around 48% of customers carry cash often in case of an emergency despite using non-cash methods more frequently, WorldPay estimates that 10% of UK payments volume is in cash, and a survey from PayComplete asserts that even Gen Z consumers still value cash.