Restaurant gift cards are seeing a resurgence in popularity as the industry continues to reopen for indoor dining, reports Paytronix Systems, Inc.
The digital guest experience platform’s Mid-Year Gift Card Report 2021 found that restaurant gift card sales jumped in May and June of 2021 and have now reached 91 per cent of the figures seen in the same two-month period in 2019.
Annual sales of restaurant gift cards across all industry segments had fallen by nearly 32 per cent in 2020 when compared to 2019. That May-June 2021 figure was up more than 54 per cent over the same period in 2020.
Gift cards sold by quick-service restaurants in 2020 were redeemed 3.6 per cent less often through six months when compared to 2019. This difference was considerably smaller than was seen for casual-dining and fast-casual restaurants, which saw redemption rates fall by 5.4 per cent and 5.8 per cnet, respectively.
Meanwhile, fine-dining gift cards were actually 0.9% more likely to be redeemed within six months than those sold in 2019.
Lee Barnes, Head of Data Insights for Paytronix, noted this data, seen even as many areas still faced pandemic restrictions, provides good reason to expect a strong winter holiday sales season.
