New figures from booking platform DesignMyNight suggest that St Patrick’s Day will provide a bumper weekend of trade for hospitality this year. This is despite searches and bookings for venues getting off to a slower start than in 2022.
In 2022, there were almost 40,000 general searches on DesignMyNight for St Patrick’s Day in the month leading up to the event. More than 70,000 bookings were made through the site.
Despite a slower start this year, searches are now increasing daily. Now the number is expected to pass last year’s before St Patrick’s Day on Friday. Indications are that celebrations are likely to extend over the weekend.
“St Patrick’s Day has everything in its favour in 2023, and hospitality has the chance to drive additional revenue by making it a weekend of celebrations,” said Leighanne Bent, senior marketing manager at DesignMyNight.
“Customers will be receptive to meeting up with friends on a Friday night, but, with England playing Ireland in the final round of the Guinness Six Nations Rugby Union Championship the following day, we are also seeing a rush of bookings for Saturday, 18th March, with 28,000 reservations taken through the site already.
“It’s also likely that many rugby fans will be enjoying St Patrick’s Day in the pubs and bars of Dublin ahead of the match, with almost 30,000 page views for Dublin bars recorded in the last month, which represents a 400% increase compared to the same period in 2022.”
She added: “Based on 2022 figures, when over 7,000 DesignMyNight searches were made for St Patrick’s Day events on 14th March alone, we expect another surge in interest in the final few days of this week and hospitality operators have a great opportunity of reaching and converting these late bookers.”
