A new festive competition to support local shopping

The Great Town and City Christmas Quiz is a national competition where places all around the UK compete against each other for a chance of being crowned the smartest Christmas town or city of 2020. Places are ranked on the leaderboard and, out of the 70 towns and cities which have taken part so far, Chester is currently 13th.

The Chester Gift Card has been active in our area since November, and is a multi-venue gift card that is designed to encourage local shopping, and keep money locked into the area. It is part of the award winning Town and City Gift Cards programme from fintech Miconex, active in over 50 towns and cities around the UK and Ireland.

Each Chester Gift Card is a prepaid Mastercard and can be spent locally in restaurants like Chef’s Table and Bollicini, hotels like the Chester Grosvenor and The Townhouse, cafés like Jaunty Goat and Zugers, national retailers such as Reiss and Waterstones, independent retailers including Chester Boutique and Up North Records and on leisure/attractions such as the Storyhouse and Chester Cathedral.

Research from Visa and the Centre for Economics and Business Research has shown that shoppers can double the amount of money that stays in their local economy by consciously choosing to shop local, also suggesting that 81% of people are supporting local businesses more this year.  

Town and City Gift Cards are multi-venue gift cards that can be spent across a wide variety of shops, restaurants, leisure and services in a particular town or city. Data from the Gift Card Voucher Association suggests that the popularity of multi venue gift cards is rising, to 37.7% of all gift cards purchased in October, from 36.9%. The data also revealed that 62.7% of people worry about buying single brand gift cards.

Emily Ghazarian from Chester BID said: “Consumer behaviour has changed in 2020 as people have started to understand just how vital local shopping is to local economies. At the same time, the loss of national retailers has led people to worry about buying single retailer gift cards. The Chester Gift Card can be spent with over 100 merchants in Chester. It’s a secure way to give a gift card that also offers plenty of choice for the recipient.

“I’m rooting for Chester to come top in the Great Town and City Christmas Quiz but I’d also love someone local to win the prize, and choose a £1500 Chester Gift Card. They could do all of their Christmas shopping, enjoy meals out for the next year or treat themselves to something special like a piece of art or jewellery. The Chester Gift Card is more than a gift card, it’s the key to Chester.”

There is much debate about the smartest place in the UK. Eurostat found that London, Scotland and the southern counties like Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Surrey have the highest number of people who’ve been to university in 2019, but the Great Town and City Christmas Quiz tests knowledge of popular culture and history.

All 10 questions in the Great Town and City Christmas Quiz are themed around Christmas and famous gifts, such as the gift Ebenezer Scrooge gave to the Cratchit family, the wish made by Kevin McCallister in Home Alone and the $1.1 million gift given by Richard Taylor to Elizabeth Taylor in 1969.

To take part in the quiz, compete on behalf of Chester and be in with a chance of winning a £1500 Chester Gift Card, visit https://townandcitygiftcards.com/christmasquiz/

The closing date for the competition is 18^th December 2020.