Hospitality, Christmas and end of year special events

It has come to that time of year, where hospitality and retail earn huge amounts of revenue, although for the former, it only happens if you are prepared.


Retailers are going to boom irrespective simply because consumerism is now a key part of western culture, and even if people aren’t buying presents, they are buying themselves things, or doing other shopping that may involve renovating, upgrading, and the like.

Some retailers earn more in December than they do for at least half of the business year.

So in hospitality, it can mean the same, but you must be prepared, for it you are, then the potential for revenue can be immense.

Ideally, such preparations are in their final stages, with themes, menus, concepts and staff all ready to go.

But unfortunately, the real world doesn’t always work like that, or even worse, there is no forward planning. The entire month of December (and for that matter a lot of November) is essentially one huge special event that culminates in Christmas and New Years.

There is no excuse not to be able to earn immense levels of revenue.

Because often after the New Year, business can slow down to a crawl, so bolster your revenue to make the soft period more manageable.

So first, let’s look at some basics:

1. Organise and plan, if not with events teams, with management and owners. Saying “hey we are going to want to be busy” if not enough. You must first think about what you want to do. This involves creating menus, and seeing what you can do to maximise this period.

2. Check your lists and previous years information assuming you have done this before. Do you have a database of people to contact? Can you see how much more stock you used? Did something go wrong last year that you can correct this time around?

3. Check your key platforms are built. Crucial here is staffing. While you can often have the luxury of perhaps students needing more hours, you may also have the spectre of high turnover as people make changes, go on holidays, etc. It is quite simple, if you are going to make more money, you will need more people.

Sometimes the very first step with staff is allowing some extra phone time for incoming bookings.

4. Check your resources. This could be purchasing extra stock, getting extra stock that is stored out from the storage rooms (this stuff could need cleaning!) or crucially getting in contact with hire companies.

This isn’t just about having more food & beverage on hand, but making sure you have enough plates, glasses and things you might not normally use (bon bons).

5. How is your booking system? If it is just a simple diary, fine, as long as it is clear and concise. You are going to be taking a lot more information, so make sure you are ready to receive it.

Make sure all parameters are set when checking your booking procedures. If you take a booking for 30, ideally you want them on a set menu. Could you even get a pre-order from them? A good booking process will get the customers doing some of your work.

Remember that the booking process is the first point of contact, ensure who takes it (be it all staff or just key team) knows what to do, can give information and be friendly.

AND FOR GOODNESS SAKE, WRITE NEATLY AND TAKE ALL DETAILS!

6. Do your special deals cancel out everything else? If a group over 10 comes in, must they go on the special menu (costing a cool $50 per head or more), remember that having deals/plans/specials is one thing – BUT YIELDING THEM IS THE KEY.

Then you need to form an action plan.

1. Involve everyone in the plan. Don’t think it all over, and then tell the kitchen about their new holiday menu. Equally, when the plan is all formulated, send out a memo to all team telling them so they know what is going on.

After all, if it is in place early, then staff can create the hype.

2. What are we going to offer, and what can we offer? Never offer what you cannot. Just because you can suddenly get 200 bookings in, doesn’t mean you should if you only have a 100 seat restaurant. It might sound basic, but overeager managers or owners can often make this fundamental mistake.

3. When are you going to offer it? Are you going to do something for Christmas day, or the whole month? Make sure time frames are organised.

4. How big can we go? Don’t just think of a special menu (like a Christmas set deal) or of boosting Friday nights. What about all of the post work drinks that happen throughout November and December? What about Monday nights when it can be traditionally quiet? If you are going to put special plans in place, milk the period for all it is worth.

5. Up your organisation and planning. Try to roster more in advance, and make sure your team are prepared for the busier services. Slowly increase certain stock levels. Don’t leave it all to the last minute. Build into it.

6. Get involved with the moment. If you are going hard core with a Christmas theme, think about a tree, think about party hats. This goes towards creating an atmosphere, which is critical for customer enjoyment.

7. Going back to bookings, have you thought about deposits and securing areas. You don’t want in a 100 seat venue to take a booking for 30 and either have them not turn up, or worse, have 5 of them turn up but want to hold the 25 seats.

As this can be so key, maybe set aside 30 minutes each day to go through and process these, whether it be calling back booked guests for credit card details, or to process online bookings via a setup Paypal account.

And finally....

MARKETING MARKETING MARKETING!!!!!

Once all is said and done, don’t forget to market your deals - if not via contacting databases, changing your home page, at the very least by having staff tell customers and having information on tables or on your normal menus.

All of the above counts for very little if potential customers don’t know about it.