Pre-holiday planning: Getting ready for the busy season

The approaching holidays can present mixed emotions when you’re running a hospitality business. On one hand, there are opportunities for creativity and consumer engagement. At the same time, the challenges that come with how busy the season is can be pretty overwhelming.

Pre-holiday planning is your friend. With some prep, you can set your company up to navigate the busy periods and make the most of the season.

Optimize your staffing

Let’s face it: a hospitality business is nothing without great employees. Therefore, you need to optimize your staffing as the busy season approaches. 

A good place to begin, particularly for hotels preparing for the holidays, is to review your likely staff needs as early as possible. Examine data on last year’s busy season alongside predictions for the coming holidays. Doing so helps you make informed decisions about the likely number of staff you’ll need in each area to meet customer demand.

Don’t neglect skill set needs, either. Particularly if you’re hosting specific types of seasonal events or services, make certain you have staff with the knowledge to pull these off well. Wherever possible, upskilling your staff with in-house training can also help boost employee engagement and retention.

One of the mistakes too many companies make as things get busy is isolating departments to their specific areas of expertise. Ensuring all your staff can work together well is a way to improve customer experience, be agile at challenging times, and even spearhead innovations. The keys to effective cross-functional collaboration surround giving your staff the information, tools, and support to work cohesively. For instance, encouraging the sharing of different perspectives can inspire new ways to solve problems alongside highlighting staff’s skills and talents. Clear communication helps keep all staff members aligned on what needs to be achieved so they can move forward effectively.

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Prepare your inventory

Launch early marketing

Yes, the holiday season tends to be a busy time of year. You can’t just expect that customers will come and seek out your company, though. A key point of preparation is early seasonal marketing tactics.

Digital content is essential here. Consumers are likely to learn about your unique holiday offerings through online materials. So, start to plan the creation and distribution of these items as early as possible.

Some options to consider here might include video walk-throughs of your business, showing your efforts to create a holiday atmosphere. It might involve TikTok posts with your catering staff, discussing the holiday dishes they’ll be preparing. Remember to enhance engagement with these types of posts, too. For instance, links to Christmas promotions and early booking discounts on social posts can boost consumer orders while also influencing the algorithm due to greater interactions with your content.

Remember that your website will also be a central space where consumers interact with marketing content and make bookings. Optimizing your website for customer satisfaction will positively affect how people see your brand. Focus on user experience, making it easy to navigate and optimizing the size and placement of clickable elements to encourage visitors to use them. Particularly for the busy season, you should also improve your website’s response time and speed to minimize the potential for consumers having to wait around.

Pre-holiday planning in areas such as staffing, marketing, and inventory management are key to navigating the busy season effectively. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach, though. Digging into the needs of your business and its customers helps you make informed decisions for what actions give your company the best chance to thrive this year.