Tullamore Court Hotel’s Post

Bartending is often seen as quite a transient role that, by its nature, isn't worth investing in. Yet, we all know that happy teams stay with their employer for a longer period of time. Anyone who knows me will know that I am an advocate of investment in learning & development because it offers nothing but benefits for everyone involved - but that isn't the only thing that will make teams happy to stay on for a long time. This all makes our project with Mapal Group all the more exciting, because we get to dig a little deeper and find out what is making bartenders tick, what makes them happy and what they need to change to stay satisfied with their roles. The only way we can get truly valuable insight is with plentiful data, so this is where I come to you hat in hand to ask for the gift of... data. If you know any bartenders or manage teams of them, I'd really appreciate you sharing this survey with them so we can get that all important data. There's even the chance to win a £100 gift voucher in it for them if anyone needs any convincing.

🎄 Hoteliers, Make This Holiday Season Unforgettable! 🎄 Looking to spread holiday cheer while boosting your bookings? With Reserva Gift Card, you can turn your hotel into a festive favorite for corporate gifting! Attract businesses looking for the perfect way to reward employees, thank clients, or celebrate the season – all without extra effort on your end. ▶️ Capture Holiday Spending: Sell bulk gift cards to corporate clients eager to give the gift of joy and relaxation. ▶️ Effortless Coordination: No back-and-forth needed – recipients easily redeem gift cards through Reserva. ▶️ Seasonal Appeal: Position your hotel as the ideal destination for holiday getaways, festive celebrations, and cherished memories. Let’s make your property the gift that keeps on giving! 🎁 #Reserva #HotelRevenue #CorporateGifting #HolidaySeason

Why should you purchase MeliáRewards points? Here you have 3 reasons: Book a hotel with points. Get a Gift Card for your loved ones. Gift a Spa experience to your partner. Discover much more at MeliáRewards. #MeliáRewards #Loyalty https://ow.ly/IlyE30sGePl

🎄December: A Critical Month for Boosting Hospitality Sales🎄 As December rolls in, hospitality venues have a golden opportunity to end the year on a high note. With January often bringing a post-holiday dip, now is the time to maximize revenue and solidify customer loyalty. Here are 5 key focus areas for your business this month: 1️⃣ Curate Holiday Experiences • Offer unique, themed events like festive brunches, tasting menus, or live music nights. • Highlight seasonal offerings: think specialty cocktails, holiday desserts, or limited-edition dishes. 2️⃣ Capitalize on Corporate Events • Position your venue as the go-to spot for office parties and team celebrations. • Create attractive packages that include food, drinks, and décor to simplify the booking process. 3️⃣ Optimize Your Online Presence • Make sure your website and social media channels reflect seasonal offerings. • Use targeted ads to reach those planning holiday outings. • Simplify online reservations with clear, user-friendly booking links. 4️⃣ Sell Gift Cards • Promote gift cards as the perfect last-minute holiday gift. • Incentivize purchases by offering small bonuses (e.g., buy a $50 card, get a $10 bonus). 5️⃣ Upsell and Cross-Sell Strategically • Train staff to recommend high-margin menu items and holiday add-ons. • Bundle offerings like appetizers + drinks or desserts + coffee to boost check averages. 💡 Pro Tip: Build customer loyalty by capturing emails during visits. Come January, you’ll have a direct line to promote new-year specials or comfort-food menus tailored for winter. What’s your strategy to keep December sales booming? Let us know in the comments or reach out to Day For It Hospitality for tailored advice. Together, let’s make this holiday season your most profitable yet! #HospitalitySuccess #BoostSales #HolidaySeason #DayForItHospitality

Feeling Ghosted This Christmas? We're seeking insight from fellow hospitality humans! 🎄 Hey everyone, at The Urban Garden we are a family-owned, independent restaurant in Bournemouth, and we’ve been excitedly gearing up for the Christmas season. With enquiries rolling in, we’re doing everything we know about to make the booking process smooth and inviting. We're responding quickly with all the info, offering incentives to secure bookings promptly, and even following up with friendly and personalised reminders. But here’s the thing: despite these efforts, we’ve been getting ghosted! It’s a bit frustrating to see enquiries drop off without even a “thanks” or a polite decline that they've decided to go elsewhere (although those that do are very nice and engage in feedback as to why they chose elsewhere) We’re wondering if this is a trend others are experiencing, or if we’re missing a trick somewhere? If you're in the industry, are you facing similar challenges with festive bookings? What strategies have you found helpful to convert enquiries into confirmed bookings? Any tips for re-engaging those potential guests who aren't replying? We’re all ears and would love to hear your thoughts or advice! Let’s support each other through this busy (and very important for the continued success of our business) season. 🎅🎄 As a side note, and surely I'd be silly not to mention that if you’re still looking for your Christmas Party to be sorted, then get in touch and we can chat..... As long as you promise not to ghost me” 👻🎄

🎄 The Busiest time of year 🎄 As we hit December hospitality businesses all over the world experience their busiest periods. But are hospitality staff taking more and more abuse from customers? There’s a fine line between a well balanced and justified complaint and abuse. Mistakes happen as long hours are worked in order to make Christmas celebrations for customers special. It’s very easy to be understanding towards the people making your celebrations special. If hospitality workers get something wrong it’s important to remain calm, be courteous and empathise that they are probably working long hours. There will be longer waits for food, drinks may take a little longer to hit your table and when asking for the bill it might take a little longer to arrive. But what hospitality workers strive from is making things perfect for Christmas celebrations. So, if they do get it wrong, and your coffee comes with the wrong syrup.. or they forget to swap your salad for chips, or, God forbid, you order no ice .. and your drink comes with ice, just remember how hard they’re all working to try and make your experience special. Help the hospitality industry make your Christmas special ❤️❤️❤️ 🚫Say no to abuse 🚫 The Pour House Group Ltd Casa Whitehaven Limited

The best part about my job is sending tokens of gratitude to the team members of the restaurants that I work with each month. I measure the performance of each team member at each restaurant and tally the points they generate during each shift. Then I get to send prizes to the top performers at the end of each month! We recognize top performers in 2 ways so that we can give full-time and part-time employees an equal opportunity to be recognized: 1️⃣ Most total points for the whole month 2️⃣ Average points-per-shift for the month Some of the very kind responses I've received from recipients of these prizes: "Hey, I just wanted to let you know that I really appreciate that gift card. It came at the perfect time as it was just my daughter's birthday on the 31st. Thank you for all your love and insight as well. You're amazing." - Employee in Houston. "You are theee best. Appreciate everything you do!" - Employee in Denver. "Thank you, I really appreciate it. It’s refreshing to have someone care so much about the employees of a company. This is the first time I have had this sort of experience in a workplace and it’s refreshing to have my hard work recognized. Thanks again :) " - Employee in Chico, CA. For context, these prizes cost less than $200 per month per restaurant. These prizes are given with intention to team members who perform at a high level based on carefully designed expectations and a measurement system constructed by me and the restaurant operator. I can't think of a better investment of resources than showing gratitude towards the team members that rise to the occasion and consistently perform at a high level. I'm grateful to get to play a small part in these team members' employment journeys. I'm so lucky to get to help nurture their growth and development, and make their workplaces just a little bit better to work in. This video is a snippet of a weekly performance summary that I send to every team member at each restaurant. We are working on being more curious before convicting, asking more questions before drawing conclusions. This will, hopefully, lead to a more open-minded and understanding work environment.

None of the ☀️refreshed and ready to smash it☀️ upon my return from holiday. Not because of excessive alcohol consumption (which only happened twice) but because I feel completely duped. I’m the designated holiday booker for the group – the one who spends hours researching, comparing, obsessing. So, ‘we’ picked this year’s holiday, and with a 5* hotel in Kos boasting a 4.8 Google review and a 4.5 on TripAdvisor, my expectations were higher than my SPF. We weren’t expecting a true 5* at the price we were paying, but with those ratings they had to be doing something right, right? You can guess where this is heading… The hotel was, well, clean. But the room was basic, and the food was borderline edible. What was truly 5-star were the staff - especially when it came to delivering cocktails right to our sun loungers. But here’s the kicker - once you’d knocked back a couple of those (admittedly delicious) cocktails, the staff would ask “Fancy leaving us a 5-star review?” And after a few drinks, most people were more than happy to oblige. Brilliant tactic, right? They’re racking up the 5* reviews by the hour, but is it sustainable? The hotel may be winning the review game for now. But by inflating their review scores with glowing feedback from sun-soaked, cocktail-happy guests, they’re setting high expectations - way beyond what they can actually deliver. Will future guests, sober and wide-eyed, arrive expecting perfection, only to be met with "good enough"? Then after a few more mojitos I thought, “Maybe we should be plying our clients with cocktails before asking for testimonials?” What could possibly go wrong? Who needs realistic expectations when you’ve got a 5-star testimonial? I jest of course – compliance would kill us for starters (and, you know, ethics). B2B reviews are a different ball game - we’ve got to back up everything we claim, and client testimonials build trust. But unlike holiday reviews, it’s not a personal opinion about a week in the sun. Companies have policies about brand associations, and legal teams - so getting them to sign their name to a review of your service is not always easy. We all love great feedback, but let’s be honest—how many clients voluntarily offer up a testimonial? Exactly. They’ve got enough on their plates already, so unless we ask, we’re probably not getting anything beyond a thumbs-up emoji in an email 👍 And even when we do ask, we have to make it count, because “Sandra is sound” doesn’t quite cut it in a bid response, does it? We, and the hotel, should remember: more reviews aren’t always better. What we really want is quality feedback that reflects the true experience - because we want our clients to stick around and be genuinely happy with our service, not to be duped into it. In today’s #PicForLikes it’s a rare picture of myself and my bestie on said holiday – a warning that if you consume cocktails for survival the millennial urge to do a peace sign in every photo is too strong to resist ✌️

🎅 Made in Manchester: Support local this Christmas 🎅 At Three Little Words, we’re not just a restaurant or cocktail bar but part of a vibrant community of independent hospitality venues. Did you know? 📖 - The UK has lost over 2,200 independent restaurants in the past year alone. That's nearly 7 closures every day! (Source: UKHospitality) - Yet, these small businesses contribute over £72 billion to the UK economy annually. (Source: British Independent Retailers Association) - The average independent restaurant has seen energy costs rise by 238% in the past year. (Source: UK Hospitality) - 65% of independent hospitality businesses are either making a loss or are at risk of failure due to cost pressures. (Source: UK Hospitality) What can you do? 🫵 - Choose independent venues for your corporate events. - Try a new local cocktail bar (We’d love to have you at Three Little Words! 😁) - Leave positive reviews to help others find your favourite spots.   - Share your experiences on social media (tag us @threelittlewordsmcr) - Buy gift cards and experiences from independent businesses. Choose independent. Choose passion. Choose the Spirit of Manchester. Jen Heeley-Wiggins Seb Heeley Abbie Duthie Jamie McPherson Joseph Steers Chloe Walker Zoe Rigby Three Little Words Manchester

Is it just me, or are FREEBIES out? 🙃 On any given day, hotel marketers are working to encourage newsletter and loyalty program sign-ups, fill more restaurant chairs, get visitors through the doors and so much more. When I speak to people in the industry it seems that a free drink, dessert, coffee etc. was once a helpful tool to achieve goals and encourage visitors. But something has occurred to me recently: freebies might be out! People aren’t dropping by to claim a free glass of wine, they’re not necessarily excited about a coffee or in some cases even a hotel voucher. Perhaps ‘offer fatigue’ has finally set in – with people bombarded by promotions all hours of the day. Maybe people are seeking more personalised experiences in 2024 and a piece of cake just won’t cut it. Or maybe we’re all more aware of how we spend our time, and we’re seeking experiences over small perks. By no means should any marketing strategy be based on giving out endless freebies… … but the questions stands: are freebies really out?