The group also saw a 20% increase in pre-booked Christmas parties bookings, while admissions on New Year’s Eve reached a record 76,500, with sales bringing in £2.4m – up 2.6% on last year’s performance.
The pre-Christmas period saw Deltic invest in a number of areas, including £200,000 in headline DJs for New Year’s Eve, and in its social media campaigns – the company invests more than £500k a year in social media –, which achieved a reach of over 6 million and engagement of 2.2 million users.
Peter Marks, chief executive of The Deltic Group said investment in the refurbishment of its estate, as well as its internal functions had helped drive sales forward for the business.
“For the first time we now have a central sales team, who have been working with us since the summer, and a central social media team, who have been putting together marketing campaigns for each area of the business,” he told MCA.
Looking to the year ahead, Marks said the group would be focused on much of the same: “Refurbishing our sites, improving our marketing, sales and social media functions, and looking at new acquisitions on opportunistic basis.
“By the time we get to this time next year we will probably be spending a lot more time on new pipeline because we will have largely got these refurbishments behind us,” he said.
Marks said that Deltic was currently appraising around 10 -12 opportunities, mostly single sites, but also two or three going concerns. “We may end up doing or two single sites, we might do none – we are very cautious about jumping in to new sites,” he explained.
“But we continue to look for those next opportunities,” said Marks, adding that the company would not rule out acquiring additional shares in Revolution Bars. “Ultimately we took a significant stake, and we might increase it,” he added.
It is anticipated that The Deltic Group’s first full refurbishment programme will be completed over the coming financial year.