THE GUV'NOR

Nigel Anstead

The licensee of the White Horse in Bedford reckons the trade needs to swing into action now to stop the decline in pub numbers

Gone are the days when, without doing much at all, your pub would be packed every Friday and Saturday and you made up the rest of the week with darts teams, pool teams, dominoes and cribbage.

The world around us is totally different compared to just 10 years ago.

It's true that most people have more leisure time and more disposable income than ever before - but look at the huge number of extra choices available to us.

Our customers are bombarded by campaigns trying to persuade them to spend their money in a huge variety of ways.

Why would you spend your time and money in a pub when you can buy a McDonald's for £2, four cans of beer in a supermarket for another £2 and hire a DVD for another few quid?

We might have gone down the chippy on a Friday night. Now it's curry on a Tuesday, Italian on a Thursday, Chinese on a Saturday and so on.

The pub is not the first port of call any more. There are many styles of eating and drinking establishments around now, many offering good deals on service, drinks and food.

Pub operators need to look at their customer base, locality and competition and hone their offer accordingly - you can't just stand behind the bar and expect customers to simply walk in. What works for us is putting on events and activities that draw people in.

If Monday night is quiet, get a band in. If Tuesday is a bit slower than you'd like put a quiz on. If you've already got one on Sunday put another one on - what does it matter?

Part of this is about effort - you must offer people a reason to come to your pub and spend more than they would usually spend. For us this means offering some sort of social bonus or activity, but every pub is different.

At the last count there were around 60,000 pubs in the UK. I can see that number dropping to 40,000 in 10 years if we, the licensees, don't buck up our ideas. Life as we knew it has ended.