The sun is shining and the shades are on yet the commercial vehicle that is Christmas is already spreading festive cheer whether you want it or not.
Restaurants and hotels are signing up diners for Christmas meals with the incentive of early yuletide deals.
So Crowne Plaza Chester has published a brochure entitled ‘Let’s Do Christmas’ with party nights, festive menus and accommodation deals. Carden Park Hotel is promoting Christmas shopping breaks.
Arley Hall and Gardens at Northwich is advertising a Christmas Floral Extravaganza.
The Lord Binning at Kelsall has been emailing its special offers for large parties. And sister venue, The Mockingbird Taproom, in Lower Watergate Street, Chester, which is part of the same New Moon Company, has tweeted its Christmas menu.
Holly Wood, the aptly named spokeswoman for the New Moon company, makes no apology for jumping on the festive bandwagon.
She said: “It’s very much the Christmas season in hospitality. Bars, restaurants and hotels are starting to push it. It gets earlier each year.”
But Holly argues the industry is simply responding to demand because calls are already coming in for corporate bookings with some enquiries as early as January soon after Christmas 2015 had ended.
“We have to be proactive as a company. We have started getting requests coming through so we have jumped to that demand and put together a package,” said Holly.
“It might take a little bit of sparkle away from Christmas but a lot of corporates have contacted us over the course of the past couple of weeks asking ‘Do you have your menu ready?’, ‘What’s the plan for Christmas?’, ‘How are you putting it together?’. So we have responded quickly and swiftly and provided an incentive for people to book.
“It might sound peculiar to non-industry people but it’s fairly standard,” she added. “As a business we are in the business of making people happy and smile through food and drink.”
Holly said some people wanted to get the task of organising their Christmas party out of the way and take the pressure off not finding a suitable venue especially as last year there were waiting lists for groups seeking to fit into an available slot.
She said the Christmas menus went on the tables of the company’s eight outlets last month. “We are a bit Christmassy in July!” she joked.
