F&B trends that top restaurants in hotels are featuring to compete with other restaurants
F&B trends that top restaurants in hotels are featuring to compete with other restaurants

Conventionally, we reckon hotels as place to stay and restaurants as place to eat. This has led to the rather inadvertent subjugation of a hotel’s ability to serve haute cuisine. However, people have recently come to terms with the fact that when it comes to catering, there are a handful of very unique facilities that hotels can provide, but standalone restaurants can’t. Hotels of the present time are focussing on exploiting these facilities to the fullest, so as to make their mark in the catering scenario of the world.

For starters, hotels are typically more spread-out in terms of marketing and public relations compared to standalone restaurants. This leaves them with more resources to employ when it comes to fine dining. Cross promotion of businesses featuring distinctive packages and experiences is the stronghold of business ventures by hotels that are trying to maximise revenue from catering. In order to maximise residential sale, hotels are drifting towards combo packages that offer a room stay as well as dining or even spa with dining. This new trend is catching up fast across hotels and it is becoming more and more evident that eating in the hotel calls for a different set of particulars and is a different experience from dining at a restaurant.

Of course, hotels add diversity and animation to the aforementioned feature by organising events such as inter-hotel festivals where chefs from different hotels (of a similar chain) are invited to the venue for a cook off. These events create a fascinating market of consumers – those who check into a hotel not only to stay, but also to eat. Hotels that have number of establishments in their chain are especially likely to incorporate events like these into their calendar, and existing examples show that they result in an enthralling experience for guests and does wonders for business and guest loyalty.

In some hotels, the catering aspects of hospitality are managed by a restaurant that, while being part of the hotel, is considered to be a different entity altogether. These restaurants have distinctive qualities that set them apart from standalone restaurants, such as lower capital expenditure and operating costs, given that rent, utilities such as electricity and water, credit card fees, cleaning and maintenance, and other similar things are shared with the hotel itself. Moreover, these restaurants have a handful of very –likely clients living in the same establishment as them, thereby making them more likely to succeed as compared to standalone restaurants.

A final advantage that has set a trend in the hotel-restaurant business is duty-free liquor. Most hotels are able to serve duty-free liquor with the licenses that they get. At the other end, standalone restaurants have a duty paid license which makes their alcohol prices significantly higher than those in hotels. This means that the hotels are able to serve alcohol at lower rates – a development that is bound to make them double up as excellent choices of location for parties, hangouts, vacations, and a host of other activities.

While the hotel management industry has been an area where tradition outlives modernity, these are fascinating times indeed, when vast changes are taking place in the way hotels are looked at by the average consumer, and the idea of hospitality is being redefined from one of necessity to one that partakes more of luxury. 

 
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