Which diners are most likely to be looking for a cheap meal?

Restaurants in London are the most likely to be busy if they offer discounts, according to research by a dining app.

Researchers used Google search term data from the past two years to compile a list of the thriftiest cities and found that southerners are far more likely to be tempted by a bargain than those in the north.

London came out on top, with the highest rates of thrift-themed search queries per capita collated with data from GlobalWedIndex.

And bottom of the list was Scotland, suggesting that the majority of Scots aren’t often on the lookout for a bargain.

Researchers analysed the Number of times the terms, “deals”, “discount codes”, “eating out vouchers”, “savings”, and “vouchers” had been used in each area.

Then they collated their findings with data from GlobalWebIndex to create a thrift points system in which 80 was the highest possible score.

Stevie Ross, founder of Enjoy Stevie app, said: “We serve up restaurant deals up and down the country. Operating on this scale got us hotly debating which region we thought was the thriftiest.

SME Publications/ SME XPO 2024

“With the post-lockdown government initiatives, there’s no time like the present to snap up a food and drink deal, so we thought it’d be the ideal time to do a little research about who was searching for what. What we found surprised us.”

After London, the Midlands and Northern Ireland were both close runners up on 33 points each. Wales and the South East both squeezed into the top five with 30 points each.

At the other end of the scale, it appeared that people in Scotland, the South West, the North East, and Yorkshire were least likely to be searching for money-saving deals.

SME Publications/ SME XPO 2024