I know you can’t say the same. If my own ‘no room at the inn’ experiences of trying to find a local pub to accommodate the extended Willock family for lunch on Christmas Day are representative, it will be an especially busy season of goodwill for the trade (don’t worry — the crisis is over, before you all rush in with wonderful offers of Yuletide hospitality)!
So we will endeavour to provide all the latest news, controversial opinions and winning ideas on our website, www.morningadvertiser.co.uk , until we land on your doormat again with an enthusiastic Happy New Year thud on 12 January.
I sense some nervousness from licensees about the year ahead, and in particular the first quarter of 2012. Business confidence in general is fragile, and the never-ending procession of doom-mongering headlines in the press does little to inspire optimism.
But browse the pages of the PMA, which aims to highlight best practice more than dwell on bad news, and you’ll see some great examples of publicans refusing to let the dark clouds rain on their parade.
Take our new pub launches feature on page 42, which showcases 11 of the most successful new openings of the past year.
It’s full of the promise of business success born of innovation and smart management. It’s also a reminder that for every two pubs that close in the current climate, a better one opens.
If Britain is ‘over-pubbed’, as some would argue, we’ll have to accept the demise of unviable and poorly-managed parts of the estate and celebrate the reinvigoration of the sector by people with ideas, passion and capability.
Only by raising standards across the board and giving people a reason to get off the sofa, away from lowest-common-denominator TV shows and cynical supermarket meal deals and emerge, blinking into the brave, new pub landscape, will we do justice to this great British industry.
Share with, ask questions of, and learn from your fellow publicans. Flatter them by imitating their best efforts and be flattered (rather than upset) when they copy yours.
On the face of it you compete with the pub down the road. In reality you’re stronger working together to make a night out better than a night in.
It should be, which is why I’ll be having fun in a pub on Christmas Day, rather than sitting though Morecambe & Wise repeats
and arguing with my mother-in-law about the validity of her dubious Scrabble word choices.
Have a very merry and profitable Christmas! Serve those festive customers well and give them every reason to return in January.
It should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. I will always be keen to hear your feedback on the magazine, our website and our events programme, and to learn the sorts of things we should be doing to help you and your pub thrive. We’re all in this together.
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