Tips & Tricks
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16 Apr, 2024
If you want to keep your restaurant diary and your tills full over the next long weekend, try our helpful tips to entice new table bookings and regular diners.
Who doesn’t love a bank holiday? If these twelve key stats are anything to go by, everybody loves them and so should your venue! One of them was that data from Charles & Dean showed the August bank holiday weekend contributed a whopping £5.8bn in sales in 2023, with an average spend of £138.55 in bars, restaurants, and hotels.
So there’s plenty of potential to power up your table bookings and your profits anytime a bank holiday weekend comes around. Of course, the competition can be fierce as the feeding frenzy for hungry customers commences in the build up to a bank holiday weekend.
It makes perfect sense for diners too, as bank holidays offer the perfect opportunity for families and friends to catch up, with plenty of choices depending on their tastes and preferences. Some will prefer to treat themselves to breakfast or lunch, while others will want to splash out for dinner and cocktails.
As you may have already gathered, there are plenty of opportunities for restaurants, pubs, and hotels to cater for them too!
In this article we’ll share five ideas to help get your creative juices flowing to come up with enticing offers that are going to get you more table bookings over the next bank holiday weekend, so you can also prepare early.
#1: Check out your trends from previous bank holidays
The best place to start planning how you’ll attract bank holiday customers is to do some digging first. The best place to learn what to expect from your next bank holiday weekend is to look back. Your EPoS system will likely be able to give you vital clues, such as average bill amounts, average customer spend, most popular menu items, and what your most successful special items or offers were.
Whatever worked last time can likely be reused or better still, improved on the next time round.
The same could be said for your restaurant booking system too. When you use a system like ResDiary, every booking can capture vital information including not just your customer info, but also their demographics, channel reports, and no-show/cancellation reasons too.
Consider this information as well as the average party size and which times of day were most popular too. It’s likely that you won’t struggle to come up with several ideas for ways to promote your bank holiday offerings!
#2: Remember, it’s a long weekend
Our focus can automatically move to the Monday on bank holidays, but the reality for hospitality venues is it’s a long weekend. Many venues, especially pubs, may look to capitalise on a potentially busier Sunday (more like a Saturday). Of course, venues that usually close on Mondays may also decide to open for lunch at least, to take in some extra bookings and revenue.
When you’re coming up with ideas to entice customers, try breaking the weekend down by service. You may even decide to extend your hours to expand your booking opportunities.
When you’ve broken the days down, consider who is more likely to make a reservation at certain times, and target your offers towards them.
#3: Think about food offers for families
Bank holidays are a great opportunity for families to catch up or travel together - Data from the UK Government revealed that a mega 9.7 million people intended to travel domestically over the August bank holiday weekend in 2023!
The chances are that if your restaurant, pub, or hotel caters for families, you’ll notice their booking preferences and menu choices are different to couples or groups of friends.
How can you use that information? For example, in a pub where more families dined around lunchtime, they come up with an offer (like a kids’ set menu or group discount before 1pm) to entice them earlier in the afternoon. That way the late afternoon could be more free for adult group bookings who are more likely to spend more on drinks as well as food.
The same could be said for breakfasts and bottomless brunches too!
#4: Create a more grown-up experience
We’ve factored families into our bank holiday planning, but what about discerning adults looking for a late-night offering (or at least a delicious evening meal)? Many people may decide to head out in the evening on Saturday or even Sunday with friends or their partners this bank holiday weekend.
This could give you another avenue to explore in terms of creating a unique experience that you can promote to those audiences.
Again, consider your existing data to help you decide what sort of options could work. Did your venue attract more group bookings in the evenings than usual during your last bank holiday weekend? Did you sell more wine or cocktails?
#5: Start marketing to your existing customers
We’ve talked about how booking data from previous customers can help to shape your bank holiday offerings. So, it makes sense that these should also be the first people you market to in the build up to the next bank holiday weekend.
Everyone working in hospitality knows the value of regular customers, and nothing can make their loyalty stronger than personalised experiences and exclusive access to new offers.
As we mentioned above, you can create, manage, and promote marketing campaigns directly from your ResDiary booking system. Unlike social media, or third-party booking platforms, this is an opportunity to talk directly to your customer base, and increase their chances of booking again with you.
Of course, you will also want to promote your venue to potential new customers on social media and other platforms online too. This way, you’ll have all your bases covered.
Conclusion
Getting early table bookings can be imperative to a successful bank holiday weekend for your venue. Of course, the competition will be fierce and it can be confusing to think about how to make your venue stand out from the crowd.
If you use restaurant booking software and an EPoS system, then you should have access to the data that can give you clues as to what sort of items, messages, and special offers might be most successful. Remember, it is always best to focus on what makes your venue unique too.
Lastly, your existing customer base is likely to be the best place to start your marketing efforts in the build-up to bank holidays weekends. If diners have enjoyed your experience before, they’ll be likely to book again, and early access to exclusive news and offers can nurture their loyalty!
