Prices
Christmas brings a huge opportunity for hospitality businesses, but attracting festive customers and making the most of every visit takes more than putting up the decorations. Discover practical Christmas marketing ideas using print to promote bookings, increase spend and encourage customers to return after the festive season.
Christmas can bring some of the busiest trading weeks of the year for restaurants, pubs, cafés, bars and hotels, but festive demand isn't guaranteed.
The NIQ Hospitality Business Tracker found that during Christmas week 2025, sales at managed pubs grew by 4.8% compared with the same period in 2024. Restaurants, however, saw sales fall by 1.1%, while bars recorded a 15.5% decline.
With customers choosing carefully where they spend, a strong festive offer needs to be easy to discover, simple to book and worth talking about. From promoting Christmas parties to encouraging another round at the table, print can support customers at every stage of their visit.
Long before customers sit down for Christmas dinner, they need to know what you've got planned.
Your festive menu, party nights, live entertainment, Christmas afternoon teas and New Year's Eve events can all give people a reason to visit, but the message needs to reach them at the right time.
Flyers and Leaflets can take your offer beyond your existing audience, whether you're handing them out locally, including them with takeaway orders or placing them somewhere potential customers are likely to see them.
Closer to your venue, Custom Posters, A Frames and Window Stickers can turn passing footfall into interest.
Keep the message simple. Lead with the event or offer, make the dates obvious and give people a clear next step. If bookings are made online, adding a QR code that takes customers directly to the relevant booking page removes unnecessary steps between seeing your promotion and securing a table.
Think about where each piece of print will actually be seen too. Someone walking past an A Frame only has a few seconds to absorb the message, while a leaflet picked up inside your venue gives you more space to explain menus, packages and booking details.
Once someone is interested, make it easy for them to understand exactly what you're offering.
A dedicated Menu can do more than list festive dishes. It can communicate package prices, group booking options, available dates, drinks packages and any important booking information in one place.
The design should help customers find the information they need quickly. Keep dates, prices and booking details consistent across your menus, posters, website and social content, particularly if your offer changes throughout November and December.
If you're promoting Christmas parties or group dining, give the booking information enough space. Customers shouldn't have to hunt for party sizes, deposit information or how to enquire.
You can also use the menu itself as promotional print. Smaller versions placed at reception, on the bar or near the entrance can introduce your festive offer to customers who are already visiting and may be planning their next occasion.
Getting customers through the door is only part of the opportunity. Recent research shared by UKHospitality found that average festive menu prices reached £36 per person, with many hospitality operators focusing on encouraging greater spend per visit as customer numbers came under pressure.
Print can help highlight those additional opportunities without relying on staff to mention every offer.
Tent Cards placed on tables can promote festive cocktails, premium drinks packages, desserts, upgrades or limited seasonal offers while customers are deciding what to order.
The important part is to give each piece of print a job. Rather than filling a table card with everything available, focus it on one useful action. That could be upgrading to a drinks package, trying the Christmas cocktail menu or ordering a festive dessert.
Gift Vouchers can also turn a festive visit into another sale. Display them near tills, reception desks and bars, or mention them on table materials where customers already have your venue front of mind.
For hotels, restaurants and experience led venues in particular, a voucher can give customers something they can buy immediately while solving a Christmas present problem at the same time.
Christmas hospitality isn't only about the meal or the room. The details around the experience can help make a visit feel different from the rest of the year.
Seasonal signage and Window Stickers can carry your Christmas theme through the venue, while table print gives you another opportunity to make the experience feel joined up.
Personalised Christmas Crackers can become part of the table setting for Christmas lunches, parties and events, but they can also do more than decorate the table.
Think about what could go inside. A return offer, complimentary drink, dessert voucher or promotion for a January event can turn a festive extra into a reason to engage with your business again.
The same principle applies across the venue. Every piece of print doesn't need to sell something, but it should feel connected to the experience you're trying to create.
The festive rush eventually ends, but the customers you've attracted don't have to disappear with it.
January is traditionally a more challenging period for many hospitality businesses, so think about how your Christmas print can create a reason to return.
A restaurant could include a January dining offer when presenting the bill. A café could introduce Loyalty Cards during December. A hotel could give departing guests an offer towards a future stay, afternoon tea or dining experience.
Gift Vouchers can work here too. Customers receiving them at Christmas give you another opportunity to bring people through the door after the festive period.
The key is to make the next action specific. An offer that simply says to visit again is easy to forget. A clear January benefit, defined experience or time limited reason to return gives the customer something more tangible to act on.
Print doesn't need to work separately from your digital activity.
QR codes can connect menus, posters, table displays and leaflets directly to the next stage of the customer journey. The destination should match what the customer has just seen.
A Christmas party poster could open the booking page. A table card could link to the drinks menu. A leaflet promoting gift vouchers could take customers straight to the purchase page.
Avoid sending every QR code to your homepage. The fewer steps someone has to take, the easier it is for them to respond to the offer.
You can take this further with CAMIcodes, which connect printed materials with video content. A hotel could use one to show a festive venue tour, while a restaurant could introduce its Christmas menu or give customers a look at an upcoming event.
Whatever you connect your print to, make sure there's a clear reason for someone to scan.
Rather than treating menus, posters, signage and table materials as separate orders, think about when customers encounter them.
Before they visit, your print needs to create awareness and make the festive offer clear. As they're deciding where to book, it needs to provide enough information to help them choose. Once they're inside the venue, it can support the experience and encourage additional spend. Before they leave, it can give them a reason to come back.
Thinking about festive print in this way can also help you spot gaps. You might have a Christmas menu ready but nothing promoting it outside the venue. You may have strong window signage but no clear route to booking. Or you could have a busy December ahead without anything planned to turn those customers into January visits.
The best festive print isn't simply decorative. It should support what you want customers to do next.
If you're a print reseller supporting restaurants, pubs, cafés, hotels or venues this Christmas, getting involved before the final print brief arrives can help you uncover more of what the customer actually needs.
A request for menus could also involve posters, table materials, pavement signage and vouchers, but the aim isn't simply to add more products. It's to understand the customer's wider festive activity and recommend print that supports it.
Our Christmas Print Planning for Resellers guide covers when to start conversations, how to build stronger festive briefs and what to look for throughout the season.
The most effective Christmas print has a clear purpose. It can help someone discover your venue, choose a festive package, book a table, spend more during their visit or return once Christmas is over.
Planning those moments together gives your marketing a better chance of working as one connected campaign rather than a collection of individual products.
Explore our Hospitality printing range for menus, table print, signage and more, or browse our Christmas Printing range for more ways to bring your festive plans to life.
Posted on August 14, 2026 by Emma Thompson
Related topics:
