Walk down Jetty Road in Glenelg on a warm summer evening and you'll see packed restaurants, lines out the door, and happy owners counting receipts. Then October hits, the tourists leave, and suddenly you're wondering if you should even bother opening on a Tuesday.
This is the brutal reality of Adelaide's hospitality industry. Summer pays for the year, and winter tries not to sink you. But a growing number of Glenelg cafes and restaurants are changing that equation—not by working harder, but by working smarter.
The Seasonal Trap
Hospitality in tourist areas has a fundamental problem: your customer base evaporates when the holidays end. The locals who remain are fewer, they're more price-conscious, and they've already eaten at your place a dozen times.
Most restaurateurs just accept this. They hunker down, cut hours, maybe close for a month, and pray for October to come faster.
But there's a better way.
Strategy 1: Capture Every Booking—Even the Ones That Slip Away
Here's what happens in most cafes: customer walks past, thinks "maybe I'll grab coffee," keeps walking. Or they check your Instagram, think it looks good, but never actually book.
These are lost opportunities that no amount of social media posting will recover. But with the right automation, you can capture them.
The fix: Make booking stupid-simple and everywhere. Not just on your website, but link it in every social post, in your bio, in your email signature, everywhere a potential customer might be browsing on their phone.
And here's the key: if someone doesn't complete the booking, send them a gentle reminder 24 hours later. "Hey, we saw you were checking out our booking page. Still keen? Here's a link." Sounds pushy? It's not. It works. Most platforms see 15-25% of abandoned bookings convert with a single follow-up.
Strategy 2: Turn One-Time Visitors Into Regulars
The real money in hospitality isn't in tourists who visit once. It's in locals who come back every week. But how do you make that happen?
Automation.
The fix: Create a simple loyalty sequence. When someone books (first time), add them to a gentle email/SMS sequence over the next 30 days:
- Day 1: Welcome, thanks for booking, here's what to expect
- Day 3: "Hope you enjoyed it! Here's 10% off your next visit"
- Day 14: "It's been two weeks—we miss you. Here are this week's specials"
- Day 30: "It's been a month! Come in and try our new winter menu"
This doesn't need to be complicated. A decent CRM or even a simple email tool can automate this in about an hour to set up. And the payoff? A 20-30% increase in repeat visit rates is common.
Strategy 3: Master the Review Game
In hospitality, reviews are everything. A good review brings new customers; a bad one scares them away. But most happy customers never leave reviews, while upset customers are highly motivated to share their experience.
This creates a skewed perception that hurts your business.
The fix: Automated review requests. Send a message 24 hours after a booking, asking how the experience was. If they respond positively, immediately send a link to Google or TripAdvisor. If they respond negatively, the system flags it to you so you can call them personally and make it right before they post publicly.
Simple. Automated. And it builds a steady stream of fresh reviews that keep bringing new customers through the door—even in the depths of winter.
Strategy 4: Off-Season Nurture
When the tourist season ends, don't go silent. Your email list and SMS list are goldmines that most hospitality owners completely ignore.
The fix: Keep providing value in winter. Send weekly emails with:
- Winter menu highlights
- Local events you're participating in
- Special offers for locals only
- Behind-the-scenes content (chef's specials, team updates)
You're not selling—you're staying top-of-mind. When a local thinks "where should we eat tonight?" you want your name to be the first that comes to mind.
The Bottom Line
Glenelg hospitality businesses that thrive year-round aren't working 80-hour weeks in winter. They're working smarter by setting up systems that keep customers flowing in regardless of the season.
Booking capture, loyalty automation, review management, and off-season nurture. Four strategies, minimal ongoing effort, and a year-round business instead of a seasonal rollercoaster.
That's the power of automation. And it works whether you're a small cafe or a 100-seat restaurant.