Businesses hope Belfast’s Christmas market comes back “bigger and better” in 2021
The famous Christmas Continental market was cancelled in October 2020 because of the Coronavirus pandemic.
A local businessman has said the Belfast Christmas market being cancelled has meant he has lost almost 60% of his turnover for the whole year.
The owner of Papas Mineral Company, Wayne Adair, normally has a stall outside Belfast City Hall.
However, the famous event was cancelled earlier this year as a matter of public safety because of the Coronavirus Pandemic.
Normally it runs from late November until just before December 25, but the organisers announced in mid-October it would not be going ahead as normal, with many other local markets across Northern Ireland following suit.
Mr Adair would normally sell mulled wine and other drink products at his stall and this year he has resorted to trading online, but he said it is not the same:
“It’s a big drop, it’s a big loss, we have tried to pivot and sort of counter act that and we’ve set up an E-commerce website to go online with sales but it’s not the same.
“It’s not the same as people coming to your stall, you don’t have the same interaction with people it’s juts not the same feeling and it just doesn’t have the same turn over.
“Christmas and these markets are probably coming up to about 60% of my turnover throughout the whole year.
“So, what I would do in the five months of Christmas is 60% of what I do all year, the five weeks at Christmas at the market.
“I had an incline probably all year, with the way things were going, obviously places that attract big crowds wouldn’t be going ahead.
“So, whenever it was finally announced that it wasn’t, I was disappointed.
“It’s not only Belfast that I trade at with the Christmas market and Marketplace Europe I also do two in Glasgow as well so it’s a big drop in turnover for me, for what is essentially my busiest time of the year.”
Mr Adair said although he was disappointed, he does not see how it could have gone ahead in the current Covid-19 climate.
He added: “We couldn’t have done this at this time.
“If this was last year we couldn’t of done this, we would have had the noise and the sounds and the smells and the sights of the whole market and they’re would have been thousands of people coming past us and it is, it’s quite sad to see it at this point in time.
“Christmas and these markets are probably coming up to about 60% of my turnover throughout the whole year.
“There’s hardly any traffic coming past, there’s a handful of people walking in the streets, whereas we would have been full swing any other year.
“The build-up of the Christmas markets signifies Christmas is coming to Belfast and we haven’t had that this year.
“So, it is a sorry sight, but we don’t know whether even if the market had of been that there would have been the people in the city centre that could have supported it.
“Belfast City Centre will suffer because of the lack of the Christmas Markets too because it has proven in the past about the economic benefit that the market does bring to the city centre.
However, Mr Adair said he does think it should be safety first and that controlling numbers at the event would have been difficult.
He added: “The Christmas Continental Market is nearly a victim of its own success.
“The crowds it would have got here daily Monday to Friday, never mind Saturdays and Sundays.
"It means that you could never have controlled it.
“I suppose we just wait for next year until things are back to a bit more normality and it’ll probably come back bigger and better.
“There has to be some sort of give or take, unfortunately the Christmas Market was the big draw and that’s the one that fell down but, as I say hopefully it’ll come back bigger and better next year.”