The latest UK budget announcement has uncovered how 2025 will plan out for hospitality, whether that be overcoming new challenges or embracing different opportunities. For hotel businesses, the rise of business rates, National Insurance and the Nation Minimum Wage will now significantly affect their running costs and hospitality operation.
Indeed, the budget has thrown in a few surprises for the hospitality industry, however there are serval solutions to help you overcome these changes. So, how can your hotel business navigate the budget, and what can Access Guestline do to help?
Main Budget Changes
Business Rates: Be business smart
One of the biggest changes to come from the 2025 budget is the business rates relief scheme. The 75% reduction in business rates, which was set to last until the end of March 2025, will now drop to 40% and capped at £110,000 for the 2025-26 financial year.
This means that smaller businesses will face new financial pressures in the next rate year. These changes will also affect the average restaurant’s rates bill from £5,051 to £12,122, however the government has promised to permanently lower business rate multipliers for hospitality properties from 2026-27.
National Insurance: Navigating the additional costs
Starting from April 2025, the threshold for contributions is set to be lowered to £5,000 and the rate of employer National Insurance will rise to 15%, a 1.2% increase since the last budget. This will add an extra £600 per employee, which will significantly increase payroll expenses that may have a knock-on effect for small and medium-sized businesses.
This increase means that hospitality businesses need to think of ways to overcome the added expenses by investing in technology solutions to take away some of the administrative burden to save additional costs.
National Minimum Wage: Supporting your staff
With the budget announcing a 6.7% rise in the National Minimum Wage, this means staff will now receive £12.21 an hour starting in April 2025.
However, though this increase means staff will be able to navigate the rising cost of living with more in their pocket, it creates new challenges for hospitality businesses due to the added strain on operational costs. Employers will now have to think about how they can provide the best customer experience with a reduced financial plan which could affect menu pricing, staffing levels or pay structures.
How Access Guestline Can Help You
We can agree that the 2025 budget has given us all some important things to think about in the hospitality sector. So how can Access Guestline help you tackle these changes and lessen the financial strain?
With Access Guestline’s family of products, we can help you streamline all areas of your hotel business with both you and your guests in mind. Remember, Access Guestline is more than a software; it is your partner for planning and keeping your costs under control. Take a look at how our products can help navigate the budget changes in each area of your hotel business.
EPoS is our next generation retail system to enhance your customer purchase experience. Drive performance with tier pricing, localised menus and consolidated guest billing to tackle the additional labour costs.
Rotaready - our employee scheduling software, helps you control operational costs and make informed scheduling decisions, by utilising sales and reservation data to ensure you have the perfect number of people on hand to meet demand.
And when your team clocks in and out using Rotaready, you'll gain full visibility over scheduled vs actual hours, ensuring instantly accurate timesheets that are ready for payroll. Your rounding rules are applied too, trimming any early starts, adjusting late finishes or deducting breaks.
Our Trail software is a task management system to help you organise teams for maximum productivity while meeting compliance responsibilities. Forget about the paperwork and stay on top of the guest experience without affecting your budget.
CPL is a Learning Management System designed to help upskill your staff and keep your business thriving through the budget changes. Engage your team with legal compliance and best practices with our pioneering approach to learning and development.
Prevent waste and meet demand with real-time stock updates. Procure Wizard gives you immediate visibility of high and low profit items to maximise revenue and save money where it counts for the 2025 budget.