News

Business diners spend 6% more than leisure diners

November 24, 2014

Concur, a provider of spend management solutions, has released an analysis showing the habits of business diners and their benefits to restaurant revenue. Supported by insights from Table8, the analysis also sheds light on business dining trends in the US that restaurants can leverage to effectively increase revenue by targeting this demographic. 

According to a news release, the analysis shows:

• Business dining is a bright spot: While overall dining sales in the US grew approximately 1.4 percent from Q1 2013 to Q1 2014, Concur studied the dining habits of its business users and found that frequent business diners increased their dining spend by 6 percent within the same period. This business dining spend represents a variety of expense types including meals while traveling, client meetings and team outings.
• Business dining is a top expense: Since 2011, business dining has averaged a 5-percent increase year-over-year, indicating that business dining continues to be a top expense for employees. This growth in business dining spend at a faster rate than leisure dining is similar to the accelerated growth seen in corporate air, hotel and ground transportation spend.
• Busiest business dining days balance revenue: Business diners are most active Tuesdays through Thursdays, and Wednesdays are consistently the busiest day of the week for business dining. Reservation data from Table8 shows that leisure dining peaks on Fridays and Saturdays. Thus, restaurants that can effectively target business diners can have a more consistent flow of patrons throughout the week.
• When more is less: In the last 12 months, business users from technology companies transacted most frequently (about 5 times per person), but spent the second lowest in business dining, at $84 per check. During the same timeframe, financial company employees transacted less frequently (about 3 times per person), but spent the most in business dining, at $123 per check. 

The research also looked at the best cities for business dining among Concur's 25 million users. New York City, Chicago and San Francisco were the top three business dining cities by total spend for the 12-month period from August 2013. Within the same 12-month period, the most generous business spenders were found in New York ($152 per dining check); Boston ($121 per dining check); Miami ($120 per dining check); Chicago ($118 per dining check); and San Francisco ($117 per dining check).

"Business dining is big business, especially right now, as our data shows. From our Expense IQ Report of last year, dining ranked as the third largest spend category for companies in the US, trailing only airfare and lodging," said Brian Camposano, SVP of Corporate Strategy, Concur, in a news release. "With business travel predicted to rise in 2015, we expect to see overall corporate expenditure – especially for business dining – go up as well."