So what was all that about? A year in the planning, a year in the selling and a flash in the happening.
Our second festive season rounded off 2016 in style with party-goers trebling their numbers from last year, albeit whilst we were in infancy. A funny thing happens in hotels around this time of year as we find ourselves catering for an even more eclectic mix of customer profiles than ever.
We had a 2 week period of corporate clients holding their normal strategy days and meetings adjacent to a room full of similar corporates dressed in Christmas jumpers, running around with rubber chickens, doing the time-warp (again) and undertaking the traditional seasonal activity of ‘competitive shot downing’. Shots they had never had and will never have again, until the same time this year. I remember hearing once that alcohol sales increase in times of recession or uncertainty due to people either hiding from reality or deciding to go out with a bang. World leaders are doing their very best to keep brewers, vintners and distillers in business.
Also in our festive pot were the weekend B&Bers, ‘family visiting’ stayers, ‘let’s get away from the family’ stayers, romancers, football watchers, sales shoppers, hardcore ‘up all-nighters’, post work socialites and afternoon tea & fizz fans. All good fun.
All this fun added up to about a farm of pigs in blankets being consumed, a great lake of wine and beer being drank and a national bakery (that rhymes with eggs) of mince pies being left on the plate. If that wasn’t enough, we stirred the amazing Boiler Shop into the pot. Located opposite the hotel, on South Street, it is truly something special. Aficionados claim it to be the crucible of the industrial revolution with it giving birth to Stephenson Rocket in 1829 and the ensuing railways and bridges all over the world. It will become one of, if not the music venue in town and has already featured some unique club nights; another customer type to be catered for.
So Christmas came and went. Here we are in January wondering what do we do now? Ah yes, the proper job, the clear strategy and the consistent operational delivery for the next 11 months. Yes we’ll review the customer feedback, how it went behind the scenes and what we will have to do differently this year to hit the targets but one thing is guaranteed, thankfully for the hospitality industry people will continue to eat, drink shots then leave.
There’s joke about a Panda somewhere in there.
