Are hotel restaurants stepping up to the plate?
Historically, hoteliers focused almost solely on room revenue as the main driver of profitable revenue growth. Hotel restaurants along with other Food & Beverage services were seen simply as an amenity, and not much more. However, with the rise of popular food tv shows, restaurant ranking sites, and foodie influencers on social media, on-site restaurants are now key contributors to a hotel’s positioning within their market, providing an opportunity to entice overnight guests as well as bring in additional revenue from local and drive-in markets.
From rooftop bars to celebrity chef pop-ups, people are becoming more interested in unique and memorable culinary experiences – especially while traveling. We are starting to see hotel bars and restaurants becoming the bigger draw for guests and locals alike, which also opens new opportunities to increase brand awareness and drive revenue. That said, this increased interest also challenges hotels to step up to the plate (so to speak) and deliver an exceptional dining experience as well as leverage the guest data from their dining outlets to increase spend from current and returning guests.
How to understand your best guests
To see the benefits of capitalizing on your F&B offerings, hotels need to have the technology in place to know which guests are visiting their restaurant(s) and how often, combined with data detailing that guest’s other on-property spend. The easiest way to capture and analyze this information is through an integrated CRM with a single, up-to-date view of each guest, including their key loyalty and hotel stay related data. By bringing the right data together in an actionable view, hotel staff are empowered to recognize, reward, and incentivize guests through personalized on-site services and automated email campaigns, thus driving repeat visits and deeper loyalty.
There are several ways hotel marketing managers can benefit from a CRM integration between hotel stays and restaurant experiences, including the ability to create targeted email and social media campaigns, marketing your restaurant in pre-arrival guest communications, the ability to include restaurant specialty items in hotel packages, and even offering exclusive discounts for guests who book a restaurant reservation ahead of their stay.
In addition to F&B marketing and upsells, there are even more ways hotels can benefit by leveraging their first-party guest data, such as providing a more personalized on-property experience when your staff has access to important guest attributes such as a wedding anniversary, birthday, or other notable milestone. Connecting this data also makes it easy for the front desk to make restaurant reservations for guests within the restaurant platform.
