There is a stubborn optimism that clings to percentage points like a child to candy. “Hospitality turnover up 3.4% in Q1 2025!” reads the headline. A sigh of relief follows in boardrooms and cafés alike. But before we uncork any Prosecco, let’s be radically clear: turnover is not profit, not even income. It’s a volume, not a verdict.

For the sixteenth consecutive quarter, the Dutch hospitality sector has reported a year-on-year increase in turnover. But in a country where inflation still erodes purchasing power, the cost of living remains high, and the stock market drifts like a becalmed ship, this narrative isn’t progress. It’s misdirection.

Turnover ≠ Recovery

A 3.4% increase in turnover in Q1 2025 sounds comforting until you remember this: in nominal terms, almost everything is going up prices, wages, rent, ingredients, energy bills. If your revenues rise 3.4% while your input costs surge 6%, you haven’t grown. You’ve drowned slower.

The sub-indices tell the story more truthfully:

• Accommodation services up just 0.6% a rounding error in a world of price hikes.
• Hotels scrape together +2.3%, while campsites and holiday parks actually shrink by 3.5%.
• Food and beverage? +4.4%, mostly on the back of costlier menus, not fuller tables.

What’s being celebrated is not resilience, but inflation passed on to the customer. It’s turnover inflation, not real expansion.

Sugar-Coating the Pill

Presenting this as good news is not just misleading, it’s dangerous. It gives entrepreneurs the false sense that the system is correcting itself. That we are “back on track.” That the worst is behind us. But indicators are not aligned:

• Business confidence in the hospitality sector is still negative, despite a small uptick from -17.9 to -12.3.
• Entrepreneurs remain pessimistic about the next three months.
• The real economy, labor shortages, volatile energy costs, lower margins, is under structural stress.

We’re sugar-coating the pill, hoping the symptoms will go away.

The Risk of Passive Optimism

Hope, when detached from data, becomes denial. And entrepreneurs,especially small and micro, enterprises, cannot afford that luxury. Your rent isn’t paid with headlines. Your team isn’t retained on vague positivity. You don’t buy new kitchen equipment because the CBS says turnover ticked upward.

Governance demands clarity. Risk management requires lucidity. Compliance insists on truth, not comfort.

What You Need Instead

If you’re running a business in this sector, here’s what matters more than feel-good statistics:

• Inflation-adjusted margins: Are you actually earning more, or just charging more to keep up?
• Purchasing power of your clientele: Are they coming less often? Spending less per visit?
• Stock levels and supplier terms: Have they worsened?
• Staffing stability: Are your people staying, or are you spending more to retain less?

Turnover is just a headline. Context is your compass.

Conclusion: Headlines Don’t Pay Bills—Analysis Does

It’s easy to float on a wave of quarterly data, but real entrepreneurs steer. You don’t navigate based on how things “feel” at the macro level; you read the tides, track the wind, and measure the hull. When Statistics Netherlands publishes growth percentages, the question isn’t “Is this good?” but “Good for whom? Under what conditions? Compared to what?”

The hospitality sector deserves better than clickbait. It deserves structural reform, transparent insight, and economic conditions that support sustainable growth, not vanity metrics that mask fragility.