Golf days

Where: The Inn@West End, West End, Surrey, www.the-inn.co.uk

The idea: "Anyone for golf?" is a cry that regularly resounds around the inn. Owner Gerry Price introduced golf days a few years ago as a means of integrating different elements of the pub's customer base.

"Distinct customer groups visit the inn throughout the day - those who come for lunch, early-doors customers who come to drink and late-doors customers who come to drink and eat," says Gerry.

"Golf days allow our customers to mix socially across this spectrum and provide us with a different way of achieving the right marketing mix," he adds.

How it works: Three times a year, a group of the inn's customers don plus-fours and head to a local golf club for breakfast and 18 holes before returning to the pub for lunch. The cost per person for the day is £85.

Business benefit: The pub books the golf and sells it on to its customers as part of the package. Lunch and drinks are subsidised in the hope that the event will attract repeat business.

"The golf is great fun and, by using the pub as a base, it is also a good way of showing people what we can offer in the way of food," Gerry says. The pub normally offers 24 spaces for the day - an optimum number for this type of event, according to Gerry.

"We tee-off at 9am and with that number of people would expect to return for lunch at about 3pm, which is outside our normal lunchtime service," he explains. "This means that our restaurant can operate normally and the golf day achieves additional covers."

Top tip on making the idea work: Gerry says: "Hold this type of event during the quieter part of the week."

The inn's own version of the British Open is normally held on a Wednesday to improve mid-week takings, as well as offering an innovative way of avoiding that weekend crush on the golf course.