Not long after the sun comes up on Christmas morning, cars begin pulling into Clifton Hill, the resort area on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. “It’s Christmas, but it’s a huge day for us attendancewise. I can’t imagine not being open,” says Peter Collins, operations manager of the Great Canadian Midway, which manages several attractions at the facility including a 70,000- square-foot arcade, a Ferris wheel, a hotel, and restaurants (www.cliftonhill.com).
Traditionally, large theme parks have been the entertainment option of choice in the attraction industry for those looking for an alternative way to spend the big day. However, many smaller facilities have found that with some market planning and solid internal communications, they can open and thrive with Christmas Day operations.
“We have some built-in advantages in that we’re adjacent to a major tourist attraction, Niagara Falls, and we’re a little over an hour from Toronto, a major, multicultural city,” says Collins. “There’s no special advertising; people in the area who don’t celebrate Christmas just know that we’ll have our doors open.”
The Tourist Factor
Deciding whether or not to unlock the doors on Christmas seems to have much to do with what kind of market the attraction is in. Bend, Oregon, is a community with between 130,000 and 150,000 people in a 15-mile radius. At first glance one may not think Christmas operations would do well for a family entertainment center (FEC) there, but Sun Mountain Fun Center (www.sunmountainfun.com) finds itself packed come Dec. 25.
“We often have waits an hour or two long for people who want to bowl Christmas afternoon and evening,” says owner Scott Ramsey, whose center has 24 lanes. “We’re a great outlet for people since so little is open.”
Ramsey attributes the facility’s holiday success to the fact that Bend is a ski resort town during the winter. “Most of our Christmas Day customers are in town to ski, and we’re a logical place for them to stop when they finish skiing and snowboarding for the day. If tourism wasn’t such a big factor in our local economy, we’d obviously have to rethink being open on Christmas. We don’t see many locals come in that day.”
Tourism is also what drives Christmas traffic to Santa Monica, California’s Pacific Park (www.pacpark.com). “The Christmas holidays in general are huge for us since we have lots of people coming to the area to see the Rose Parade and the Rose Bowl,” says Jeff Klocke, director of sales. “On Christmas Day, there are many people who are away from home, often from a cold part of the country, and they want to be able to say they spent Christmas on our pier in 75-degree weather.”
Always Open
For other facilities, tradition keeps the doors open. “We’ve been open Christmas for as long as about anyone can remember. We have a reputation in the community as being open every day, from 9 to 5,” says Debbie Rios- Vanskikie, spokesperson for the San Antonio Zoo in Texas (www.sazoo-aq.org).
The zoo attracts mostly locals on Christmas who enjoy the animals and miniature train ride that’s decked out for the holidays. Crowds number about 3,000 to 4,000, which is equal to a good weekday gate and is about half a regular Saturday or Sunday. “The weather can be a factor, but mostly you see families with young children who want to get out of the house before dinner and may want to give the children an activity for part of the day,” says Rios-Vanskikie.
While most attractions stick to the regular fare on Christmas Day, some do a few different things to mark the occasion. At the Melbourne Aquarium in Melbourne, Australia (www.melbourneaquarium.com.au), a Christmas Day lunch is held each year amid the exhibits, and it regularly sells out. “We get about 200 guests for the lunch, at which we serve seafood of course, and people have a great time,” says Daniel Petrillo, the aquarium’s communications manager.
 “We’re in a diverse area with many residents who don’t celebrate Christmas, so this is a fun thing to do. We have families that make this an annual event.”
Spread the Word
Getting the word out that a facility is available on Christmas may take a little work if people aren’t accustomed to seeing it open, or, in the case of the Discovery Times Square Exposition (www.discoverytsx.com), it’s new. Before the facility opened last year management discussed whether being open would be viable.
“We really went back and forth over whether it would be worth doing,” says Guy Gsell, director of the New York City attraction. “We pictured a group of unhappy employees with a small crowd of guests.”
Ultimately it was decided that since New York City’s public cultural attractions, such as museums, would be closed, the Exposition should be open on Christmas as an alternative for people looking for a cultural activity that day. “We had plenty of street teams in the days leading up to Christmas handing out our brochures, and we ended up with plenty of New York tourists Christmas Day who came by in the afternoon looking for something to do,” says Gsell. “We closed early that evening, but with the crowds in Times Square, we could have stayed open later.”
Staffing Challenges
Attracting customers Christmas Day may be one goal, but the other is getting employees behind the concept. “There’s no way to sugarcoat it; people who celebrate Christmas don’t want to work that day,” says Canadian Midway’s Collins. “But with some planning you can overcome staffing issues.”
At Sun Mountain, Ramsey is direct with potential employees: “We point out in the interview that our busiest time is when everyone else is out of school and on vacation, including Christmas Day. If that’s an issue we’re probably not the best place for you to work.”
Collins emphasizes flexibility to staffers to make holiday schedules work for his 500 employees. “We have plenty of young people who may like Christmas off, but really want to be free New Year’s Eve. There are also employees with children who would like to spend Christmas morning with their families but don’t mind coming in on New Year’s Eve, so we work it out.”
He also alters hours, closing one restaurant early on Christmas Eve and keeping another open longer on Christmas Day. “There’s some trading that goes on with people’s schedules, and we make sure we’re fully staffed where and when we need to be.”
That includes management, which Collins believes sets an example. “Our managers are here on Christmas for a good portion of the day,” he says. “It is a busy day for us after all, but it’s also about showing fairness. People who may be blue about working Christmas feel better when they see that management is here, too.”
Collins also can’t remember the last time he didn’t work at the facility till 4 a.m. on New Year’s Eve, which draws huge crowds to Niagara Falls from Canada and across the border from Buffalo.
Employee Incentives
Most facilities that are open Christmas Day also try to do something for the staff on duty. “We try to have a ‘Christmas Away From Home’ theme for the employees,” says Gsell. “We supply a main course, and people bring dishes from home to share, which everyone enjoys.”
In some countries, there’s another incentive for employees willing to work Christmas Day—extra pay. “It’s a law here that they get paid time and a half on national holidays,” says Collins. “That does cause some to rethink not working, since everyone has extra bills at that time of year.”
At the Melbourne Aquarium, staffers are quick to volunteer thanks to a union-negotiated double-time paycheck for work on holidays. “Getting people to want to come in isn’t an issue,” says Petrillo. “The extra pay does the trick.”
Another thing to consider is giving staff enough time to plan. “It would be a mistake to see that your Thanksgiving weekend business was up and tell everybody that it’s time to be open Christmas,” says Klocke. “You’ll end up with some very unhappy staffers who’ve already made plans to be away. Start taking a hard look at whether you should be open Christmas, in June.”
Also, maintain the “fun.” “Make it like a working holiday,” says Klocke. “It can be crowded, but everyone should be relaxed. Keep the break rooms fun and loose, and make sure management is relaxed as well.”
John Morell is a freelance business writer based in Los Angeles whose work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. He can be reached at john@jcmorell.com.
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