A leading Palma restaurant owners recently told the Bulletin that he would advise people thinking about opening a restaurant this year against doing so after a poor summer season, a sluggish winter an uncertainty about the coming summer. At the end of last summer, according to a Barcelona-based data analytics company, bars and restaurants in the Balearics suffered the greater loss of custom than in any other Spanish region over the course of the tourism season.
In its Restaurant Results in Summer 2025 report, Delectatech, a company which specialises in data for the hospitality sector, pointed to a direct link between a fall in occupancy and a “prolonged rise in prices”. This loss is in relative terms - 4.2%. However, there appears to be another problem facing restaurants. The phenomenon of no-shows continues to be one of the main challenges facing the restaurant sector. However, the latest data from TheFork, the leading online restaurant booking platform, shows a positive trend: in 2025, the average rate of ghost bookings in Spain fell to 3.3%, an improvement on the 3.6% recorded in 2024.
At the regional level, Alicante is the province with the lowest no-show rate at 3.1%, followed by Valencia (3.2%). Madrid and Malaga are in line with the national average at 3.3%, while Barcelona reaches 3.5% and Seville 3.7%. More and more establishments are choosing to incorporate tools that allow them to combat this practice and secure their income. Currently, according to data from TheFork, 21% of restaurants use a bank footprint as a reservation guarantee, a figure that has doubled compared to 2023. Likewise, 7% apply card prepayment, tripling its implementation in just two years. These solutions minimise the impact of empty tables, improve demand forecasting and optimise restaurant planning.
The strengthening of policies against no-shows has also contributed to this positive trend. Since TheFork announced at the end of 2024 that it would tighten its policies by removing users who accumulate four ghost reservations in a 12-month period from the platform, only 2% have been removed in 2025 nationwide. This figure reflects the positive reception of the measures and a growing awareness of the economic impact of this practice on the sector.
To continue tackling this malpractice, TheFork has made card pre-authorisation available to restaurateurs, which allows them to temporarily hold a sum of money, rather than making a definitive charge at that moment. In this way, the restaurant verifies that the card is valid and has sufficient funds to cover a possible penalty if the user cancels after the deadline.
In addition to this new feature, which is integrated into the company’s management software called TheFork Manager, there is also the predictive anti-no-show tool, which proactively identifies high-risk reservations based on diners’ history on TheFork platform. This feature analyses variables such as customers’ booking history, their behaviour on restaurant pages and the type of establishment chosen. This allows restaurateurs to anticipate and take measures such as calling the diner to confirm the reservation, optimising table allocation or preparing a waiting list, thus reducing the risk of empty tables.
“Closing 2025 with a no-show rate of 3.3%, compared to 3.6% the previous year, shows that the measures taken are working and that the sector is moving in the right direction to end this practice. At TheFork, we will continue to actively combat this practice in order to offer restaurateurs effective solutions that enable them to protect their profitability and manage their business with greater security,” says Jay Kim, Country Manager Iberia at TheFork.