Blog. A message from our CEO.

Dear Supporter.

Thank you.

You have quite literally gone the extra mile for Hospitality Action in 2025.  

You have walked the entire length of the English coastline, cycled across Europe, sailed across the ocean and climbed mountains in our honour. Closer to home, you have walked for wellbeing in your thousands, generously donated prizes (the lifeblood of our fundraising), you have cooked, brewed, bottled and sold portion after portion of Invisible Chips in support of your fellow hospitality workers. We simply couldn’t do what we do without your ongoing support.

In a couple of days, we will process our final grant payment run of 2025 which will take the amount awarded to beneficiaries to around £1.05m this year, that’s the highest amount awarded since the darkest days of the pandemic setting new records for our charity. Added to that impressive figure we have also unlocked over £500,000 in unclaimed benefits and referred hundreds of cases to our specialist housing advocacy and debt restructuring services. I’m proud to end 2025 safe in the knowledge that together, we have made a positive impact on the wellbeing of thousands of hospitality families.

Of course, we only wish we could have done more. Applications for support have increased by 30% since last year, and by 118% since 2021 as household debt, physical or mental illness and relationship breakdown engulfs families forced to cope in an increasingly difficult economic environment. 2026 threatens to bring more job losses, more closures, and more calls to our helplines. All I can promise is that my team and I will do all we can to support as many people as we possibly can. For as long as you keep supporting us, we’ll keep supporting the most vulnerable people in our sector.

Hospitality is a wonderful and unique industry, and Hospitality Action only exists thanks to the generosity of spirit, sense of community and desire to make a difference that embodies the industry we serve.