Rising costs may dampen appetite for restaurants, even if weak tourist numbers don’t: analysts

A RETURN of tourists had been widely expected to increase the appetite for restaurants here. But with tourism figures still a distance from pre-Covid levels, domestic consumers are playing a larger role in driving sales for most of Singapore’s listed food and beverage (F&B) companies, analysts say.

“By and large, in recent years, we have observed that Singapore F&B players have generally been more sensitive to the easing and tightening of domestic Covid restrictions than border measures,” said Alfie Yeo, senior equity research analyst at RHB Singapore. The exception, he noted, are “highly tourist-dependent players”, such as Jumbo Group.

Other companies in Yeo’s purview have “little, or at best, partial impact” from tourists. For example, Catalist-listed Japan Foods , which operates about 20 restaurant and cafe brands across the island, mainly targets local consumers, although some outlets in town could see foreign patronage, he said.