Tube strikes causes London’s hospitality bookings to plummet by 67% – London Business News | London Wallet

This week, London has seen five consecutive days of strikes across the London Underground and the Docklands Light Railway. As travel chaos continues for commuters, locals and visitors, searches for ‘when is the tube strike finishing’ have surged by 450%.

With the strikes expected to end today, Access Hospitality has analysed data from hospitality discovery platform, DesignMyNight, and revealed a staggering 67% drop in bookings for venues across London during the strike period.

London bookings plummeted by over two-thirds

Analysing booking data from the 8th to the 11th of September, Access Hospitality has revealed that bookings for the London hospitality industry dropped by 67% compared to the previous week.

The most pronounced impact occurred on Monday, September 8th 2025, the first day of the tube strikes, when bookings dropped by 62% overnight.

Access Hospitality has noted that this figure is 50% below the weekly average for bookings, emphasising a sharp decline in consumer behaviour as the transport disruptions began.

Walk-ins have fallen by almost 69% as spontaneous visits drop

In the past week, tube strikes have impacted the social behaviours of Londoners as walk-ins have plummeted by 68.7% throughout the strike period.

Customer cancellations surge by over 50%

With widespread disruptions throughout the city, Londoners are opting to stay close to home as cancellations surged by over half as a result of travel uncertainty.

With more customers cancelling their bookings as a result of the tube strikes, the hospitality industry has seen a sharp decrease of 54% in no-shows compared to data collected from the previous week.

Leighanne Bent, Marketing Manager, reveals, “The data paints a clear picture: when London’s transport network grinds to a halt, so does its social scene.

Bars and restaurants rely heavily on footfall and last-minute bookings – both of which were severely impacted.”