Get More Than a First Date for Valentine's Day

Make the most of Valentine’s Day 

Learn how to maximise your table bookings and turn your Valentine’s Day diners into adoring loyal customers.

Valentine’s Day is a great occasion for first dates and for couples (or even just friends) to treat each other to a romantic night out. This also makes it a great opportunity for restaurants and bars to reel in more reservations and grow their revenue.

But you must ensure you’ve got the right stuff to woo your diners on the big day and make them fall in love with your venue again and again with repeat bookings. 

Why Valentine’s Day is so Important to Hospitality Venues 

Before you learn more about how you can make the most of Valentine’s Day, it’s important to understand why it is such an important opportunity for your restaurant, bar, hotel, or event space, and why it could be the beginning of a lifelong romance between you and your customers. 

Here are the key things you need to know about Valentine’s Day:

• Around 25% of Brits prefer to celebrate Valentine's Day with a meal out, offering a substantial pool of potential customers that probably wouldn't normally be making reservations midweek.
  

• Valentine's Day is synonymous with increased drink sales in the hospitality industry. CGA by NIQ data reveals a 135% jump in cocktail sales.
  
  
• ResDiary’s Beyond the Booking report from 2023 also found that 53% of diners, looking back to the last time they dined out, went to a restaurant they had visited before.

Spreading (Out) the Love: How a Midweek Valentine's Day May be Great for Venues

It would be easy to think that to fully maximise their bookings and their sales, bars and restaurants really need February 14th to fall on the weekend. But that would be a mistake, as you'll soon see that Valentine's Day is no “one-night wonder” for hospitality venues.

 

LEARN MORE

How to Make the Most of Valentine's Day Restaurant Bookings (5 Top Tips for 2024)

Valentine's Day is a special time of year for restaurants to show their appreciation and make a big impression on their customers. This Valentine’s Day, why not take advantage of the opportunity to make your customers fall in love with you?

 

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"It's more than just a day!"

"With Valentine’s Day landing midweek, you’ll find a lot of people will want to celebrate the weekend before or after. This means your venue has more time and options to maximise table bookings over the course of a few days or even the whole week.” 

Jill Massey - Senior Sales Manager, ResDiary 

How to Make the Most of Your Table Bookings on Valentine's Day

There are many reasons for you to fall head over heels for Valentine’s Day in your hospitality venue – a healthy boost to your revenue being number one! But the competition can be fierce, with other venues pulling out all the stops to send customers swooning their way.

Don’t worry. We’ve got tips to help you stand out from the crowd to attract more reservations, set the scene for a seamless service, and create a lasting impression with your Valentine’s Day diners to have them coming back for more. 

Set up for success

Set the scene to maximise your available space and provide a smooth service

Special occasions like Valentine’s Day may require you to re-think your space and your setup. As most of your bookings are likely to be couples, you’ll need to ensure that your table plan is set up the right way to ensure you can seat as many as possible, while ensuring that your service doesn’t suffer.

• Use our Table Management tools to create new segments for occasions such as Valentine’s Day.
• Use our smart booking rules and Yield Management to control the flow of reservations. ResDiary does the rest in managing booking availability and new reservations. 
• Avoid being stood up by your customers and missing out on vital revenue by taking deposits via card details or full payments up front, all seamlessly slipped into the booking journey. 
• Save your segments and your settings from this Valentine’s Day and simply switch them on again next year!

Maximise Bookings and Revenue

Master the art of attraction to boost your table bookings and sales

It takes more than your standard offering to win bookings on Valentine’s Day. You need to create an offer that’s going to entice potential diners and deliver an experience that they’ll never forget.

• Create a special set menu or promotional offer that’s targeted towards romantic twosomes or to share the love with double dates and groups of friends. 
• Promote your offers in your booking widget and switch-on prepayments for set-menus to lock in your revenue. 
• Include premium promotional offers for those who really want to celebrate in style. Forget a glass of fizz on arrival, make it a bottle! 
• Share your offer with your existing customer base. With ResDiary, you can send marketing emails directly to your opted-in lists to give them priority on promotional offers. 

Create Loyal Customers 

Build a deeper connection with Valentine’s Day diners to bring them back again

Serving up an amazing Valentine’s Day experience should just be the beginning – remember, you want more than a first date! You want to squeeze as much value as possible from every booking, and the best way to do that is by turning those customers into repeat diners.  

• Every booking is an opportunity to grow your database and learn more about your customers. ResDiary captures this information and stores it for you automatically. 
• Optimise your booking widget to get vital information and learn more about your diners. Dates of birth, dietary preferences, and the number of diners are all great for personalising your messages and future offers. 
• Run reports to measure the success of certain promotions and booking trends for big occasions, like Valentine’s Day. ResDiary has a comprehensive analytics suite for booking data, and integrates with the world’s leading EPOS systems to give you greater visibility of your customers’ habits. 
• Use that data to optimise your offerings or come up with new highly targeted promotions in the future! 
  

“Be prepared even for large groups, as well as couples"

"We've talked about attracting groups of diners as well as couples to help maximise your Valentine's Day revenue. Accommodating both couples and larger groups may require a little extra planning, however. 

Thankfully, ResDiary's intelligent table management system can relieve the stress of working out your seating plan on the fly. You simply set the rules once and let the system do the rest!”

Laurence Small - Senior Sales Manager, ResDiary

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, We've Got the Perfect Features For You!

Promotions

Create compelling offers to attract new diners, especially for special occasions, and bring your existing customers back for more.

If you'd like to learn more about our features, be sure to check out our Features page, or compare ResDiary to alternative restaurant booking systems.

Book a Demo to See ResDiary in Action!

Each demo is personalised so you see ResDiary addressing your specific needs so you can learn how our smart and intuitive booking management system can help you:

• Increase your bookings and revenue with ResDiary 
• Manage reservations and reduce no-shows 
• Take reservations from your website, social media, Google, and Dish Cult at 0% booking commission