With mile after mile of sandy beaches, rocky coves, stunning views and clear blue waters, it’s hardly surprising that Cornwall is one of the UK’s most popular leisure destinations.
Every year, millions of visitors from the UK and further afield flock to south-west England in search of sunshine, surfing, cream teas and Cornish pasties, and Cornwall’s businesses boom as a result of the tourist pound.
But while tills might ring during the summer months, what happens to those businesses in the quieter, cooler months?
Beauty therapist Radhika Jay moved to St Ives from London a few years ago and says she “just fell in love with the place”. Having previously worked in a spa, Jay had been thinking about setting up a salon of her own, but even she was taken aback when, on a trip to Cornwall, she saw a room for rent in a local hairdressers and instantly decided to set up a business there.
“It was a risk, but I had been thinking about working for myself for a while,” she says. Jay started up in August last year and offers manicures, pedicures, tinting, facials, massages and waxing.
“My customers are mainly local,” she says, “but in the summer months around 30% of my customers are visitors. They find me on Facebook and sometimes business goes absolutely crazy.
“But St Ives is a mixture of locals and tourists, and some of my busiest times are before Christmas and Easter. It is really quiet in February and November though, and a lot of businesses shut during the quietest months.”
Although the recent summer was exceptionally good, Jay says the town isn’t totally reliant on great weather. “We’ve got Land’s End, the Tate, St Michael’s Mount, festivals, hiking – there’s a lot going on.”
Jay uses payment service provider iZettle to take care of all of her payments and finds the system simple and effective to use. “Most people pay by card these days, so it’s really handy to be able to put them all through using the iZettle point-of-sale system,” she says. “It’s literally a handheld card machine, and deals with both my cash and card payments, so I can easily keep track of everything.”
Ed Hallett, managing director of iZettle UK, says the system’s not just a convenient way of paying; it also provides valuable information. “We’re moving more and more towards a cashless society as people increasingly want to pay by card,” he says. “It’s crucial for businesses big and small to be able to take card payments and our technology also means you’ll have all the data you need about your transactions, which will give a great insight into your business.”
With its five beaches, harbour and historic town, St Ives has an enviable reputation as a “jewel in the crown” of Cornwall. Tourism here isn’t just restricted to summer months, although the effect is greatest in July and August, when the 10,000 population swells to more than 35,000.
The two-week St Ives September Festival of music and arts is a big draw and extends the summer season, while in the “shoulder” seasons of spring and autumn, keen walkers from all over Europe arrive to take advantage of the excellent hiking.
Although many businesses in coastal communities only trade over the summer months, trying to make enough in that period to cover the quieter winter months, some take the decision to operate a year-round business in a seasonal market.
Further up the coast from St Ives is surfing hotspot Newquay, home to independent vegetarian health-food shop Sprout Health Foods, run by Claire Heron-Maxwell and Sebastian Venn. The couple have lived in Newquay for 15 years, but decided to start up Sprout just two years ago, having spotted a gap in the market.
“There hadn’t been a health-food shop in Newquay for 12 years,” says Venn, “whereas most similar-sized towns would have had at least one. We were both looking for a change from what we were doing and we wanted to do our own thing. So we decided to go for it.”
Heron-Maxwell had some experience in this sector, having studied nutritional therapy and worked in a health food shop in Truro, while Venn’s training as an architect meant they could save costs when they bought a run-down property near the centre of town and totally overhauled it.
“The building is just off the high street, which has really helped, because high street rents are crazy and not many properties come up for sale,” explains Venn. “Owning our own building means we have more control.”
Sprout is a cafe/health food shop/deli hybrid, where customers can buy a whole range of health food staples, whether organic, gluten-free, dairy-free or vegan. They can also be served the wholesome hot pot “dish of the day” at the communal table in the centre of the shop.
“From the very beginning, we set out to make it a year-round business, as we’ve seen so many other businesses forced to shut over winter due to lack of trade,” says Venn. “We really wanted to appeal to the local community, so we run lots of free events in the evenings, such as talks on food fermenting, which is becoming really popular at the moment, yoga classes, macramé, even our own cinema club.”
Sprout also has pop-up stalls at local music and food festivals, where it is sought out by its regular customers, and is currently planning to convert its courtyard into another event space.
“We make a deliberate point of being very consistent in our opening times – we have the same opening hours winter and summer, so people can rely on us always being open at our usual hours all year round, unlike many other shops. Our staff work with us all year round too, so there’s a really consistent feel to the business and we keep our prices the same throughout the year, rather than putting them up in the summer months.”
Venn hopes that more businesses will do likewise. “There’s no doubt that it is quieter over winter but, with a population of 20,000, there is enough custom to sustain businesses throughout the year. The more businesses that open year-round, the more people will see that it is a place you can live in all year round too.”
