Industry Spotlight: Hotel Foodservice Opportunities and Strengths

Hotel foodservice has come a long way from fancy eats and bland room service. As the world sees more opportunities for foodservice, so does the hotel scene. With more casual dining options, free breakfasts and even local partnerships, hotels are taking a page out of the attraction handbook and making their experience an opportunity to upsell. Today we look at the ways foodservice is making waves in the hotel industry and ways to make it work for your own business and drive more profits.

Built in Breakfast

As I travel frequently for trade shows, one thing that I always take advantage of, when it’s available to me, is free hotel breakfast. Whether it’s a full scale buffet with omelets, waffles and the rest, or just a smaller offering of pastries and cereals – breakfast being included in my stay is always a plus. 

From a hotel perspective, adding breakfast is a really great value-oriented selling point to get people to choose one hotel over another. Plus as more hotels, and namely more of the higher-end properties, add breakfast to their lineup, it’s hard to compete if you’re not offering some sort of program for guests.

If breakfast sounds intimidating, start with a small offering and work your way up. Even toasted pastries, and a small cereal offering can make a hug impact. Once you figure the logistics of that, you can consider expanding into a larger variety of hot prepared foods.

Fast Casual

Many hotels have fine dining options for guests but neglect the fast casual customer. Of course, if you’re not in the restaurant business fast casual may sound like a speed dating network, rest assured it's simply a style of restaurant dining. Fast casual is a mix of the convenience of fast food, with healthier ingredients and an overall more upscale dining experience. It’s the type of food you order and pay for at a cashier station and have it brought over to your table when it’s done. Little to no service is actually involved and prices are lower than standard restaurant fair.

Fast causal works for hotels because hotel guests are looking for convenience. They might not have the time to sit for a full scale meal every night, or perhaps don’t even want to. Because there is limited service involved the overhead costs can be kept low and therefor the purchase price also maintained at a lower cost to the consumer. This is perfect for the guest looking for a quick bite on their own time, whether it be 3 in the afternoon or 8 at night!

Local Fare

There’s a reason that you’ll often see new businesses partnering with older, more established businesses: built in audience base. And this same theory can be applied to the hotel foodservice arena. Working with locally established restauranteurs can bring huge success for hotel foodservice operations. Not only does the person you’re working with know the ins and outs of their industry, they also already have a fan base you can tap into.

The built in fan base is exceptionally important when you’re trying to attract both hotel guests and locals into your restaurant. More guests equals more profits, so it makes sense to be available not only to your hotel patrons but also those in the neighborhood. If you link up with a restauranteur that has a hardcore following it’s likely that you could even see guests traveling specifically to visit their restaurant, so don’t neglect to look for local opportunities and partnerships.

Want to learn more?

Download our free hotel foodservice one sheet. It has everything you need to know about AutoFry and MultiChef in relation to your industry! 

This guide includes powerful testimonials from current customers, a sample menu for easy implementation and highlights from our equipment. Feel free to download it for yourself or share it with a colleague who may benefit from adding foodservice to their hotel!

Download our FREE Hotel One Sheet!