Livebookings has enjoyed a record-breaking year, with the highest number of diners seated at restaurants across Europe and a boost in business of a third (33%) compared to the previous year. The European leader in online reservations and marketing services for restaurants helped customers defy the downturn and attract new online and mobile bookings, seating over 15m diners during 2012; an increase of over 4 million diners. To each restaurant customer, Livebookings delivered an average of more than 640 seated diners in Q4 2012 – up by over 80% from Q4 2011.

The bookings boom has been driven by an increase in merchant sign-ups to the Livebookings service, a number of strategic partnerships building links between restaurants and new customer bases, and record amounts of traffic to the consumer-facing arm of Livebookings, Bookatable.com. Much of the growth can be attributed to the rapid adoption of mobile browsing and booking solutions offered to restaurants and consumers.

Hospitality giants Fuller’s and Whitbread were among the customers who adopted products and services from Livebookings specifically designed to capitalise on the increased traffic from smartphone and tablet devices. In turn, adding these nationwide businesses has significantly increased the number of major city centre and local destinations bookable via Livebookings’ properties, improving the options available to the last-minute, mobile diner.

Bookatable.com, saw a jump in the proportion of bookings made from a mobile device, from 11% at the end of 2011 to 34% at the end of 2012. Total visitor numbers to the website have increased 57% year over year, consumer database opt-in is up 90% and the success of Star Deals helped cement a 60% increase in revenue.

Livebookings’ chief executive Colin Tenwick said: “The figures for 2012 show Livebookings is delivering more to restaurants and Bookatable is attracting more consumers, despite a tough economic climate. Our market leading products allow customers to capitalise on the growth of online bookings from smartphone and tablet devices. Over the next 12 months, we will continue to improve on the monthly average of seated diners that we deliver to each restaurant customer, and we will continue to break booking records by meeting consumer demand for great value and memorable dining experiences.”

About Livebookings

Livebookings makes restaurants and diners click. We operate a global, web-based restaurant reservations and marketing service, delivering up to one and half million diners every month to over 9,000 restaurants including OXO Tower, The Ritz, Murano and the leading restaurant and hotel chains in Europe.