Whether it's families enjoying a meal together to celebrate Christmas or couples planning a Valentine's Day date night, national holidays are great opportunities for restaurants to drive sales.
In 2022, tourism began to return to nearly pre-pandemic levels as Australia eased border restrictions and consumers regained confidence to go out again thanks to COVID-19 booster shots and less severe variants. At the same time, global challenges of inflation, supply chain disruptions, labor shortages, and other lingering effects of the pandemic impacted consumers and restaurant operators alike.
Keep reading to find out how these trends impact consumers' dining behavior during the holidays.
What is the busiest day of the year for restaurant food delivery?
The restaurant industry experienced somewhat of a rebound in 2022 as government restrictions were reduced and consumers felt more comfortable returning to their pre-pandemic lifestyles of dining out. A hospitality industry report estimated that more than one-third of Australian households’ total food and non-alcoholic beverage budget is spent on eating outside of the home, and Australians dine out two to three times per week.
Even as Australians return to their pre-pandemic dining behavior, food delivery remains a convenient option for consumers looking to reduce stress and save time — especially on holidays.
Which holidays generated the most deliveries for restaurants? Here are the top ten busiest holidays for food delivery in 2022, based on the average number of DoorDash deliveries per open restaurant location:
New Year's Day
Christmas
Good Friday
Anzac Day
Boxing Day
National Day of Mourning
Easter Monday
Easter
Mother's Day
Father's Day
Comparing 2022 vs. 2021 busiest holidays for restaurant food delivery
To help restaurants understand consumers' evolving holiday food delivery preferences, let's compare the top 2022 rankings to the prior year's rankings. The below infographic shows the busiest holidays for restaurant food delivery in 2022 vs. 2021, based on the average number of DoorDash deliveries per open restaurant location.
Our takeaways:
Families continued to seek convenience during the hectic winter holiday season. New Year's Day jumped to the top spot in 2022, followed by Christmas at #2, and Boxing Day at #5.
The April holidays saw a major bump in food deliveries as spring travel rebounded to nearly pre-pandemic levels, and families chose the convenience of food delivery instead of cooking. The biggest year-over-year-change was Good Friday, climbing 14 spots from 2021 to reach #3. Anzac Day also experienced a significant ranking increase to reach the #4 spot for 2022. And Easter jumped seven spots to #8, preceded by Easter Monday at #7.
The National Day of Mourning, held in honor of the late Queen Elizabeth II on 22 September 2022, appeared as #6. Perhaps busy parents ordered delivery for their children who had the day off from school.
Finally, Mother's Day and Father's Day, both reliably busy days for restaurants for dine-in and delivery, took the #9 and #10 spots respectively as families gathered to celebrate these special occasions.
Planning for the busiest holidays for restaurants in 2023
Wondering how to prepare your team and your kitchen for these high order volume days? We put together a few tips to effectively manage your operations on the busiest days for restaurant food delivery on DoorDash.
Plan to staff up for these holidays. You may want to have an expo overseeing incoming delivery orders and firing them to the kitchen, or double-checking each order as they go out to Dashers so you avoid having missing or incorrect items.
Organize the kitchen. Include a "lane" specifically for takeout orders, with a kitchen display system (KDS) or tickets for pickup or delivery going directly there.
Try to stay open when you say you will (this is called uptime). If your kitchen gets too busy to fulfill delivery orders on time, DoorDash partners can update your store to "Busy," which signals longer wait times to potential customers. For especially busy times, you can hit "Pause" to temporarily stop accepting DoorDash orders. You can also edit your store hours for specific days or occasions.
Maintain an accurate menu. Need to 86 a menu item? No problem. Use DoorDash's menu manager tools to temporarily deactivate items on your DoorDash menu.
For more tips, read our Learning Center articles How to Manage Orders on DoorDash, How to Avoid Avoidable Cancellation, and How to Add Store Essentials in the Merchant Portal.
Best practices for restaurant holiday marketing
By understanding which national holidays are likely to be the busiest for food delivery, operators can build a restaurant marketing strategy that engages guests and drives revenue.
Here are a few tips for restaurants to make the most of the busiest holidays for food delivery:
Share photos of festive menu items across your channels. Customers eat with their eyes first, so serving up appetizing visual content on national holidays can be a surefire way to secure sales.
Host a giveaway. Known for boosting social media engagement, contests are a creative, cost-effective way to tap into customers' competitive nature and inspire interaction with your brand on national holidays. Who wouldn't want to win a coupon for your restaurant or a free dessert on their next delivery order?
Launch holiday-inspired incentives. Use DoorDash marketing tools to make your restaurant stand out on holidays. Promotions incentivize new, existing, and/or lapsed customers to order from your store with a discount, $0 delivery fee, or a free item. Sponsored Listings are ads that are featured in highly visible places in DoorDash, like the homepage and the top of relevant search results.
Promote holiday campaigns well in advance. Give guests many opportunities and reminders to make plans to dine with you (instead of discovering they'd missed out a day too late).
Support your local community. Help customers make a positive impact in their community by offering a discount to anyone who donates to an organization of your choice, or by donating the profits from sales of a certain menu item.
Want more tips to drive food delivery sales on national holidays? Download the free 2023 Holiday Marketing Calendar and Toolkit to get a calendar of 270+ holidays and creative ways for restaurants to drive sales year-round. If you’re interested in partnering with DoorDash, sign up today. For DoorDash partners, log in to try DoorDash marketing tools with a $100 free marketing credit per store.*
*Limited-time offer available only for Australia and/or Canada merchants that have not previously used Sponsored Listings; DoorDash may end this offer at any time. Navigate to the Marketing tab in the Merchant Portal to see if you’re eligible. Once the $100 credit is consumed per store, merchants will be automatically charged for the remainder of the campaigns per store. Merchants may cancel campaigns at any time; once cancelled, any unused credit is forfeited. No cash value. Non-transferable.
