Global restaurant booking and discovery platform TheFork will cease operations in Australia
A global restaurant reservation and reviews service will close its Australian operations after 15 years citing the need to cut costs because of the impact of the Covid pandemic.
Global online restaurant booking and discovery platform TheFork will stop operations in Australia at the end of March in a bid to cut costs, citing the lingering impact of the covid pandemic.
The company, which had more than 55,000 partner restaurants in Europe and Australia, said the decision to close was not a “choice made lightly”.
“Due to the significant impact the pandemic had on the global economy, particularly the hospitality industry, we therefore had to implement certain cost measures, which includes a reduction of TheFork’s geographical footprint,” it said in a statement.
From March 31 TheFork’s local website and app will no longer be accessible.
The Australian arm of TheFork – formerly known as Dimmi – was founded in 2009 by entrepreneur Stevan Premutico.
In May 2015, the world’s largest travel website TripAdvisor acquired Dimmi – that at the time was back by Telstra, Village Roadshow and other high profile investors – with the aim of using it as a springboard into Asia.
Mr Premutico stayed on as chief executive for two years and Dimmi was rebranded TheFork in 2019.
TheFork is present in 12 countries and is the leading restaurant booking platform across Europe but in a crowded market its main competitors are Open Table, BookTable, SevenRooms and Yelp Reservations.
Retail expert Professor Gary Mortimer from the Queensland University of Technology, said he was surprised the company cited the impact of the covid pandemic as the reason to close.
“My gut feeling tells me that most of that hospitality business section is trading quite well.” he said.
“We are well and truly out of the pandemic and in the CBD and surrounding suburbs restaurants seem to be trading quite well.
“But there is that a lot of competition in that online booking area and also we have seen an increasing number of restaurants doing their own online promotions and reservations to avoid the fees businesses like these charge.”
TheFork said customers with any unused points from its Yums loyalty program will expire and become inaccessible.
However, TheFork’s gift card will still be valid for three years from date of purchase.
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