By working intimately with some of hospitality’s biggest and best operators, we are able to gain valuable insight into the industry’s trading conditions and trends.
Taking data from over 100 organisations who use our S4Labour labour management software, our new research, which has been featured in the Morning Advertiser, has revealed that Christmas Day is an increasingly significant contributor to operators’ revenues. The research, considering venues across a full range of industry sectors, found that like-for-like sales on Christmas Day 2017 were up on average 21.2% on 2016 in food-led sites. Wet-led operators saw on average a 15.4% increase.
Reports published by two of the pub sector’s biggest firms support our findings. Marston’s and Mitchells and Butlers (M&B) both enjoyed like-for-like increased sales of 5.9% across their 1,550 and 1,780 respective sites. Marston’s saw Christmas Day sales in excess of £4 million for the first time, while M&B served over 225,000 meals on the day.
Our analysis also revealed that sites that opened on Christmas Day were in an overall minority. 35.5% of wet-led venues opened for business, while 51.5% of food-led sites welcomed customers. This represents a slight decrease on 2016, when Christmas Day fell on a Sunday.
Catton Hospitality director Richard Hartley commented on the findings, “We have recently spoken to many customers who enjoyed very healthy sales on Christmas Day. We anticipate this will continue next year, and the opportunities for operators are apparent.”
