Glum summer for hospo as spending slides

Glum summer for hospo as spending slides
Ella Somers
Hospitality sales shrank in January, compared to a year earlier, as a covid red light put the brakes on spending in the last week of the month.Worldline data – formerly Paymark – said hospitality merchants on its electronic payment system registered $900 million of sales in the month, down 5.2% on a comparable basis from a year earlier and 8.7% lower than pre-covid 2020. Hospitality operators were expecting a slow revival as Auckland and parts of the upper North Island came out of a protracted covid lockdown, but the discovery...