Costumes, candy, themed events and flowers are the goods or services that triumph during this Halloween week. In Canarian businesses, the Los Finados festival has sweetened a campaign that in some cases acquires almost the same relevance as Valentine’s Day and serves as a prelude to key dates such as Christmas or Carnival. However, yesterday afternoon, when the strong day of sales had not ended, the merchant associations of the Islands agreed that the campaign was going somewhat less strongly than in previous years.
Among the factors that have influenced a “somewhat weaker” campaign than in other years Abbas Moujir –president of the Federation of Urban Areas of Canary Islands– cites the “difficult” economic situation that many island families are going through due to inflation and which has made them “choose to save on parties.” For Moujir, the “uncertainty” about the future of the economy and the “tendency toward slowdown” that some indicators showed in September are also behind the containment of spending.
However, Halloween is “one more reason to activate sales,” as stated by Raju Daswani – president of the Trade Federation of The Palms (Fedeco)–. Daswani believes that this year the campaign has been “moderately good” thanks to a climate that has been favorable when it comes to shopping, but points out that the “majority” of consumers are reserving themselves for two important discount dates that are very close. : Black Friday and Cyber Monday. “Our focus is on acquiring gifts for Christmas,” he says.
Businesses put their faith in the ‘Black Friday’ and ‘Cyber Monday’ discount campaigns
In the nerve center of Halloween, which has been during the last days the costume shops, There is more deal than trick behind the sales figures. Especially last weekend, legions of fathers and mothers joined the search for items that would allow them to characterize their children for school parties. Decoration for particular events, such as plates and tablecloths, have also had an important weight in the sales of these stores.
Clara Pérez, manager of La Mansión Mágica – store located in Santa Cruz de Tenerife– assures that Halloween is already so important that, exceptionally, they open a second headquarters in La Orotava to take on the campaign. With both headquarters open, they detect that this year there has been “a madness” around the braided wig and the black dress of Wednesday, the protagonist of the series that Netflix premiered last November about the little girl of the Addams family. To this costume we must add many others that are in demand every year: such as zombies or ghosts.
Wednesday Addams’ wig has been the most coveted item of this edition
In the dozen costume shops that Carolan has in the Canary Islands, what has surprised this edition of the festival is the rebound in sales of decorative items. Since September, some hotels on the Islands have been demanding the elements with which to decorate the theme parties that they offer their guests these days. But not only the hotels are behind these sales, but also the entire hospitality industry and more and more Canarian families: «The outdoor decoration, with lights and dolls, now looks like Christmas. The neighbors, as happens in Pueblo Hinojosa –La Laguna–, compete to see who decorates their house the most,” says Daniel Borges, manager of Carolan.
Sweets cannot be missing at the holidays either. At La Bastardería, a pastry shop located in The Gran Canarian palms, they have baked a thousand cookies with horror motifs that have gone straight to the party tables in homes. Their cookies are special, they weigh about 200 grams and are filled with flavors like their Happy Hippo model, which is Kinder’s characteristic hippopotamus to which they have stuck chocolate axes and added a red fruit syrup to imitate blood. Manuel García, one of the owners, reveals that Halloween is the third most important date of the year for his business, after Christmas and Valentine’s Day.
The night of ‘terror’
Last night, flowers filled the La Escala restaurant, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, on the occasion of the celebration of the Mexican holiday of the Day of the Dead. In the darkness, the faces of the attendees lit up in the shape of catrinas after a workshop with fluorescent paint organized by the Art Muse company. Natalia García-Rubio, co-founder of this company with Dragana Juric, confessed hours before the start of the event that there were barely any tickets left: «We have room for 50 people, who choose us throughout the year for our way of combining gastronomy and painting, But this party has had maximum expectation.
And nightlife is, according to Raju Daswani, the one that always benefits the most from Halloween. Since last weekend you could attend events with scary themes and the night of the 31st was “the big night” for these businesses. The hospitality industry, meanwhile, was also rewarded “for having a holiday in the middle”, which increased dinners in restaurants.
