The 6 Festive Challenges Restaurants Face (and How to Tackle Them)

The festive season is often the busiest time of year for restaurants and bars in the UK.  

In fact, 80% of operators say that they are busier than usual across this period, and 47% of operators expect increased footfall during this period in 2025, with many reporting it as their most profitable window. 

While this can be great news in terms of restaurant bookings and revenue, there are also some common headaches that venues face. 

In this article, we explore the six major festive challenges that venues face, as highlighted in our festive report, ‘Beyond the Booking: The Festive Season Unwrapped’.  If you face any of these obstacles, then don’t worry – you're not alone. And more importantly, we have the solutions to help you, from managing more bookings to reducing the stress-load on your team. 

Spoiler alert: Early-preparation and promotion are the key to helping you minimise these festive challenges, which was the major conclusion we came to in our report. 

The 6 major festive challenges that venues face

Headache #1: Managing Demand 

• 52% of venues turn away more walk-ins during the festive period 

Despite online bookings becoming the norm for diners, many restaurants and bars still rely on a steady stream of walk-in customers, to some degree at least.  

It’s inevitable that during the busy festive season, the more advance bookings you take, the more likely it is that you’ll have to disappoint more walk-in customers. What can be problematic though, is if you’re turning away more walk-ins simply because your staff are too busy to tend to them, or they simply get fed up with waiting, even if your venue isn’t fully booked.   

Our report found that only 30% of venues who prepared before August turned away more walk-ins. That’s a drop of 22 percentage points in comparison with the 52% of venues who turned away more walk-ins overall. 

Implementing the right restaurant booking system - as early as possible - can help with this, especially if you’re planning ahead for the festive season. According to Beyond the Booking: Festive Season Unwrapped, 87% of restaurants use a booking system, with many citing it as essential for managing festive demand. 

With a system like ResDiary, you can implement smart rules and space out booking availability during busy times, to help your staff manage their workload and maintain a smooth service. You can also keep a section of your venue available to walk-ins, creating segments in your digital table plan and ensuring no potential revenue is turned away. 

ResDiary’s W8List™ feature also allows you to form an orderly digital queue for customers who haven’t made an online reservation, without them clogging up your entrance by hanging around the door. Simply take their details and contact number, send them off for a pit-stop in advance, and text them when their table is available! Trust us - your staff and your customers will thank you for a smoother queueing experience. 

Headache #2: Booking Management

• Almost half (44%) of venues report difficulty in spreading bookings evenly, and the same proportion said they miss potential bookings as staff are too busy to answer calls

According to ResDiary’s festive report, 82% of venues that planned before August took significantly more bookings during the festive period. Yet despite this positive figure, 44% of all operators surveyed reported difficulty spreading their bookings evenly, especially during peak slots like Friday evenings.  

The impact of trying to serve too many diners in a condensed window of time is that your service can be diminished and you simply can’t fit everybody in, both of which can negatively affect your revenue. You don’t want that, especially as diners tend to spend more during the festive season. So, it’s important to capture as many bookings as you can but spread them out in a way that makes it more manageable for your staff and more enjoyable for your customers.  

A smart restaurant booking system like ResDiary helps with this. You can set rules for how many bookings you’ll take at certain times, and the system automatically adjusts availability - online and over the phone. 87% of restaurants now use a booking system, and those who plan early and automate saw booking issues drop to just 20%. 

And it’s not just juggling the bookings you have; it’s about never missing a booking opportunity. Almost half of venues (44%) said they miss potential bookings as staff are too busy to answer calls when service is in full swing, and the phone won’t stop ringing. Every missed call could be a missed booking. 

There are two solutions here:  

One: direct as much traffic as possible towards your online booking platforms. Why? Firstly, it’s easier for people to do so, which is why it’s becoming more popular as the preferred booking method. Our own analysis shows that for evening dining, half (48%) of diners make a reservation at least a week or more in advance. With ResDiary, bookings are taken 24/7 via your website, Facebook, Instagram, Google, or DesignMyNight listing. And they all sync up with your reservation diary in one place. 

Two: implement a call answering system like ResPhone. This means that calls are always answered, without taking your team members away from the task at hand. ResPhone offers menu-based options for customers to be routed to the correct information and provided with a pre-populated response. 

Both of these solutions will allow your staff to focus more energy on delighting the customers you have, creating a better customer experience, while managing bookings far more efficiently.
 

Headache #3: No-Shows and Cancellations  

• 26% of venues agreed that experiencing no-shows is a challenge during the festive season

No-shows can be more than a nuisance, they’re costing the hospitality industry and estimated £17.6bn billion each year. Our own data also reports that no-shows cost restaurants an average of £3,813 per venue, per year. 

The last thing your restaurant needs are no-show diners, especially during the festive season when customers are likely to spend more, thus making every reservation all the more valuable.  

And again, it appears that early planning can help to reduce the number of no-shows, with just 10% of venues in the ‘early-planners’ category saying they experience issues with no-shows during the festive season. But how can you prepare early on to tackle them? 

• Sending booking reminders is one way to help reduce the number of no-shows your venue gets at this time of year. A digital reservation system can automate this process, sending fully customised communications (email or SMS) to customers once a booking is added. 
  

• Deposits are also now commonly used to tackle the headache of no-shows. But the process of managing deposits can become a headache in itself without the right help. Taking deposits requires three core components;   
  
  
  • A cancellation policy that customers can review when they book.
  • The means to safely store payment details and process a payment if needed.
  • A way for customers to easily cancel their booking within the agreed time frame in accordance with your cancellation policy.  

ResDiary allows you to manage all three of these core components in one place, while also enabling you to set rules for if and when deposits apply (for example, for parties of six or more people). Our system is also integrated with Stripe (a PCI compliant payment service provider trusted worldwide) for storing payment details and processing payments.  

Learn more about managing booking deposits in your venue.

Headache #4: Pre-Orders 

• 41% said they spend too much time chasing and confirming pre-orders   

The bulk of your festive season bookings may come from larger groups, especially from business customers who are planning parties and groups of friends wanting to catch up to celebrate this time of year.  

Pre-orders are a great way for your business to offer a great deal while also helping your team to ensure a smooth and pleasant service at this busy time. Plus, the earlier you can get all your pre-orders in, the better prepared both your front-of-house and your kitchen teams can be.   

But anyone who’s dealt with pre-orders knows, it can be a hassle chasing people for their choices, with 41% of venues saying that they spend too much time chasing and confirming pre-orders. 

With ResDiary, both your team and your customers can create and manage pre-orders in one place to make it easier for everyone and streamlining booking journeys. Simply add on our Pre-Order feature to enhance your ResDiary package, and get an exclusive 60% off when you get our full add-ons bundle!

Heading #5: Table Planning 

• Almost half of venues (46%) agree that table planning becomes more difficult

Table planning can cause a headache for restaurant managers, even at the best of times. But the pain can really ramp up during the festive season, with 46% of venues agreeing that table planning becomes more difficult at this time. And not only are most venues busier, they’re also more likely to take more bookings for larger parties.  

That’s why this proportion drops again for early-planners, with only 20% of these prepared venues saying they struggle with table planning during the festive season.  

A restaurant table management system can digitise and automate your table management process. ResDiary’s table management system makes it easy to set up multiple table plans that can be applied to different times of day for different times of year. It also enables you to create joins in your table plan, which the system will use automatically when it needs to, for a larger booking or even a party taking up a whole section of your venue, for example.  

To put it simply, table management shouldn’t be something you need to worry about. Again, if you set these rules early on, your reservation system should be able to completely remove this headache altogether. 

Heading #6: Marketing and Promotions 

Another festive challenge for venues can be deciding whether or not to invest in marketing and promotion - and how much to spend. With so many competing voices during the festive season, standing out can feel impossible, but the data tells a clear story.  

Restaurants that spent over £1,000 on festive advertising were nearly twice as likely to be fully booked - 89% compared to just 50% of those who didn’t invest at all. That’s a huge return on investment, especially when you consider the potential revenue from a packed house throughout December. 

It’s not just about spending more though, it’s about spending smart. Here are a few tips to make your festive marketing work harder: 

• Use your data: Target loyal customers with personalised offers or early access to festive menus, which you can do easily with CRM systems like Acteol.  

• Be where your diners are: Promote across social media, email, and Google listings. With ResDiary, you can even take bookings directly from Facebook, Instagram, and Reserve with Google. You can also create a listing on hospitality discovery sites, such as DesignMyNight, where up to 3.9 million monthly visitors can find your venue.  

• Highlight what makes you special: Whether it’s a festive tasting menu, live music, or a cosy atmosphere, make sure your unique selling points shine. 

Summary

The busy festive season can create a number of headaches for hospitality staff and restaurant operators. But with the potential to take more revenue from every booking, it’s vital to the success of your business to overcome these festive challenges.  

As you’ve read in this article, the six major festive challenges that venues face are: 

• Managing demand
• Booking management
• No-shows and cancellations
• Pre-orders
• Table planning
• Marketing and promotions 

And planning and preparing early in the year is the key to minimising the impact of these challenges and maximising your success. So, why not start now?  

Download your copy of our report, ‘Beyond the Booking: The Festive Season Unwrapped’, to explore more: