Hospitality operators will find out after midday what Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown’s 10th UK Budget has in store for them.

Although analysts predict a relatively tame Budget, there remain several areas of interest for the hospitality sector.

And www.caterersearch.com will have all the sector-specific news and analysis as it happens after 12.30pm today.

Areas of particular interest include beer duty and property.

Beer industry representatives have been lobbying the Treasury in the run up to today, calling on the Government not to increase beer duty.

They claim beer sales fell 2.2% in 2005 and a thousand jobs were lost in the sector.

Hotel owners, operators and investors will be hoping for more detail about real estate investment trusts (REITs), which could fuel a further boom in hotel property investment.

Brown gave the establishment of REITs the nod in his pre-budget statement Last December and should reveal more today.

By Chris Druce

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