The Trends That Haven't Been Spoken About In Hotel F&B 2024.
The view from the eyes of the F&B world!
We are already 27 days into January and where does time fly? By now you are already seeing how the first month of your budget is panning out and where you need to focus your attention.
As we move into a new year, everyone is giving their tips on what will be trending in the coming year and primarily focus on cuisines, openings and global shifts.
These are great indicators to pay attention to and I have already shared some of them with my clients to make sure we are planning them into our marketing and development plans for 2024, but, I also see some other shifts gathering momentum in the industry and ones that I think will become more prevalent.
So here are my tips for the unspoken trends that will happen in 2024 and ones for you to work on with your teams to be ahead of the trend as they become more popular.
Community Focussed.
You might think this is obvious, but it is one that still doesn’t have prominence in hotel F&B. Building for your local community is the most sustainable way to grow and creates a foundation that will give you stability and will create a destination that your hotel guests will want to visit.
The benefits of a vibrant and successful F&B operation not only brings in cash through the till but also helps to convert bedrooms and build overall TREVPAR and therefore helps the overall hotel proposition.
Mobile-First Training.
One of the big changes this year will be in the way we train our people, we have to start shifting from the classic classroom, powerpoint style of training into a video first, mobile-enabled short training session. I have talked a lot through my work with tech start-up Blend I have understood the importance of how creating engaging content that our teams embrace is the power of successful operations moving forwards.
This is one of the most important subjects to focus on so check out our Hospitality Huddles talk about how we need to adjust our mindset on training. It is full of some great takeaways that will help you supercharge your training in 2024.
Or visit our website to find the link to your favourite podcast channel
Digital Experience.
I still find it fascinating how so many operators haven’t embraced the power of creating a digital experience in F&B.
Some of the biggest brands in the world have enabled online check-in and keyless entry for years, in fact, I am sure the majority of you work for brands that do the same but yet we don’t carry this into F&B.
With the clients we work with, we put as much effort into the digital experience as we do the physical one and I always encourage leaders to visit the best casual/QSR restaurants and look at how they are embracing it, when you see examples of Chick-Fil-A experimenting on delivery by drone you know its something that is going to grow.
To get you started, check our Iris who are having some great results with operators introducing digital ordering into rooms, pools and beach beds.
Story Telling.
This is a big one for me and its be more prevalent since a presentation I made to a hotel owner and Managing Director where the owner reminded me of a conversation we had when we first met. In this meeting, I stressed the importance of having a clear and compelling story for every concept you have.
Why? You need to make it easy for your team to tell your guests what each outlet is and what it does and you need to make it easy for the guest to know what each outlet is.
In essence, clarity makes it easy for people to buy into and therefore encourages them to try the outlet.
So take a look at your outlets and walk around the hotel and ask your teams and regular guests to explain each outlet, if they differ, revisit the messaging and see how you can make this more obvious or review how you communicate.
Planet Conscious.
I truly believe that we need to start being more planet conscious in our decisions. Notice I didn’t say sustainable? This is intentional because going from 0 - 100 is difficult especially in an industry that is traditionally hard to embrace and be ahead of the curve.
So for 2024, lets not try and be sustainable if it isn’t feasible, but, lets be planet conscious.
What does this mean? Influence the bits you can do so by taking conscious decisions in your strategy, adopting this belief in situations such as;
Menu development
Purchasing policies
Buy local
Waste analysis
Multi-Generational.
We are moving into a unique period where we have a multi-generational customer base that have different values and expectations but have a very close equal standing in terms of numbers.
This means that we need to be able to create outlets and concepts that can embrace the different age groups that will be visiting the hotel. As Gen Z embrace travel and experience, they are willing to travel with parents now a lot more in their later teens, early twenties than previously and thus means that your potential buyers from an F&B perspective are a lot more diverse than before because the person making the decision where to stay, may not be the only people who are making the decisions where to eat and drink when they arrive at the hotel and therefore for the first time you must start thinking about how you appeal to all generations through your online presence, your concept (your story especially) and once at the hotel, your experience.
I don’t see this talked about often, but I am starting to see a shift in some of the hotels we are working in and one that I am confident will become more important moving forwards.
So there you have it, six areas that I think will be trending in 2024 that don’t sit in the obvious column of a publication and can help you think differently this year to make it a year to remember.
Finally, before we go, I would love to know where your focus will be this year?
Thats it for this week, have a great one.
Scot ✌🏼
Finally, we have some fantastic guests lined up for the next few episodes but we are on the look out for more amazing guests.
If you would like to share examples of how F&B leaders can think differently in 2024 to grow their performance then reach out by contacting us through this link
We would also like to hear from those F&B leaders who have seen success by doing things differently and can share how they have done this.
Hospitality Huddles has always been about helping others to grow their performance and this is a great way to celebrate success and share with others.
We are looking for F&B leaders to record bonus episodes for 20-30 minutes and would love to hear from you. If you would like to have a chat, complete the form on this link and tell us about your success story and we will be in touch.