Staying Open During the Holidays Profitable for McDonald’s

“Is McDonald’s Open on New Years Day?”

After seeing the results from having kept numerous locations open on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day, McDonald’s hopes that question is asked again on January 1^st. The question is who’s eating McDonald’s during the holiday season.

Peter Saleh, restaurant analyst for Telsey Advisory Grou says “it’s probably people who are stuck on the road, traveling to family. If you’re open and other people are not, you tend to get more business.”

The amount of people traveling the week leading up to New Year’s Eve is estimated to be 93 million, according to AAA spokesman Robert Sinclair Jr. He isn’t surprised that travelers could make up the bulk of McDonald’s holiday customers.

“McDonald’s is one of the greatest beneficiaries of the expansion of the U.S. highway system.”

McDonald spokeswomen Lisa McComb says 1,200 more McDonald’s locations stayed open this past Thanksgiving than did last year, which means the company brought in about $72 million in addition sales. Experts predict that the restaurant group generated as much as $144 million dollars by staying open on Christmas.

SOURCE: Businessweek.com