Whiting & Hammond reports that they began the festive trading period early by pushing some bookings into the back end of November, helping the month to end up 7% on last year. December
Thanks to effective advance management, and despite a very strong performance in 2012, like for likes for the first three weeks were excellent: w/c 2 December up 8%, 9 December up 10%, and 16 December up 12%.
The bad news
Then came the weather, with biblical style power cuts and floods in the Kent & Sussex areas:
flooding at the Old Dunnings Mill in East Grinstead, but the crew managed to keep the pub afloat.
The Little Brown Jug was very hard to get to with all but one road to the pub flooded for days, customers coming from the main catchment areas would have to have taken a very long detour so found it easier to cancel
complete disaster at the Cricketers Inn, Meopham: power lost the day before Christmas Eve at 9pm during a very busy service, only returning late evening on Boxing Day. Christmas Eve & Boxing Day therefore lost, plus 158 people booked for Christmas Day had to be told the bad news. However, Paul Giles (the Manager of the Cricketers Inn) Laura Parnell (the Head Chef) and the crew would not be defeated and got permission to use the local church hall (which still had power) and cooked for all customers who couldn’t make alternative arrangements – plus all the locals who didn’t have power (over 120 people) a free Christmas lunch which I think has gone down in folk lore in the Meopham village.
This has already attracted many letters of appreciation and will surely ensure enduring customer appreciation and loyalty!
Overall, the week of 23 December ended down 5%, which seems like an excellent result in the circumstances.
New Year: despite no let-up in the weather, the final week produced good results – up 7%.
Overall
Whiting & Hammond summarises an eventful (!) period as:
“We are looking at Christmas trading as a great success for 2013 overall. We had some good targets to beat which we achieved, but the icing on the cake is we have had the best ever feedback from our customers, plus an extra special mention for Stanmer House which came into its own and was the star of the show with its like for like up 27% on last year.”