Hotel Restaurants can be tough to manage. After all, managing an entire hotel could be considered plenty of work as it is, let alone figuring out how to ensure that the restaurant in your hotel is running at optimum capacity. But it pays to think about how to increase food and beverage revenue in your hotel restaurant.
This is where we come in. Below we’ve listed 14 surefire ways to get a boost in the food and beverage revenue in your hotel.
So let’s head straight into the list…
Improve your customer service
It seems like an obvious one, but you would be surprised how little attention is paid to this aspect by many hotels. And yet, customer service is one of the most important means of earning customer respect and loyalty.
Increase customer service by reviewing your overall concierge service.
Quality service includes screening feedback from customers and using that information to make changes and improvements to your food. Not to mention your presentation, general service, and overall positive atmosphere during the customer’s dining experience.
All of this ensures that your customers enjoy their dining experience, rather than endure it!
By implementing a few simple instructions to staff on how to greet, serve, and assist customers, will encourage your patrons to frequent your restaurants more often, leading to increased revenue.
Add healthier options to your menu
As technology progresses, so does our knowledge of nutrition. And with the advent of the internet, people are more aware and conscious of their diet and what they put in their bodies.
As the saying goes “Your body is a temple”, and many clients are becoming more health-conscious. Adding healthier items to your menu broadens the appeal to your customers, and will encourage more people to go to your restaurants. Consider dishes that might also cater to vegetarians, or vegans too.
Consider making nutritional information available to customers if you don’t already. These are becoming more important as sensitive diets become more important in some people’s lives. Your customers will appreciate that you have these areas covered.
Promote each restaurant area separately
If your hotel has multiple places where people can get food and beverage. Then it’s wise to name and market each one as if they are separate entities.
This includes separate social media and marketing campaigns for each of them, as well as different aesthetic concepts.
For example, the bar, the cafe, and the restaurant at a hotel should all function as three separate venues. This is an excellent way to create a sense of sui generis and making the customer feel like they are having – or could have – different types of experiences at the same hotel.
Special offers for loyal customers
A great strategy that entices customers to come back to your hotel …whenever they’re in the area, is offering special offers for recurring customers.
Even something as simple as free dessert for a returning customer could be enough to sway a person when they are picking between two hotels.
Not only this, but this helps the business develop a relationship with the customer, as the customer feels like they’re receiving special treatment – and a reward for their loyalty to the restaurant and hotel.
This develops a chain of recurring customers or even superfans, using your dining facilities, which leads to a bump in revenue.
Make food and beverage available elsewhere
Although the restaurant can be considered the culinary heart of a hotel. Many customers prefer to have their food and beverages elsewhere on site.
Especially when you consider that hotels have seen a decline in hotel food and drink sales in recent years. From even as early as 2017 according to statista. The need for hotel food and beverage sales must surely widen its appeal to capture a growing audience looking to dine in a variety of settings.
To satisfy the needs of these customers, the Hotefy web application is here.
Hotefy is an online, easy-to-access web browser service that allows customers to order food and beverage, that is brought to them wherever you allow it in the hotel.
So, the next time the customers enjoying the view from the balcony suddenly realizes whiskey on the rocks would go very nicely with the view, then they won’t have to make that trip down to the bar, rifle through the minibar, or even use the phone to call room service.
Convenient ordering equates to greater food and beverage sales
Making customer ordering simple and easy will encourage them to order more. There are fewer barriers to obtaining food and beverage in your hotel.
Hotefy is a win-win option for hoteliers and their customers. Try Hotefy today and increase your food and beverage revenue – with up to a 30% increase in results.
Using convenient ordering technology helps enormously to generate additional revenue by capturing those who do not wish to wait till standard meal times, or that might be put off from going all the way to the restaurant to grab a bite to eat. Why risk losing that seat by the pool?!
Study the science behind menus
When preparing a menu, unfortunately, we cannot simply throw all the items onto a card in fancy fonts and hope for the best.
Studying data regarding menu preparation, where to place what items, what specific fonts to use and what size the print should be is integral to preparing a menu.
Develop a menu that encourages people to order meals that are more profitable for you to sell while giving them a great dining experience at the same time.
Assess the meals you have, in regard to current takings, popularity, where and when they are ordered. Compare this with profit margins. Look where themes occur and how you can build on these trends.
Increase food and beverage revenue with speed
Time is money, and that adage has never been truer than in today’s fast-paced world.
In such a world, one of the commodities a person can not waste a lot of time on is waiting for their meal to get prepared and served.
If the hotels in your restaurant have fast service, that is an automatic advantage you have over most of your competitors.
People appreciate speedy service. They’re more likely to frequent a restaurant with faster service than one that makes them wait an unreasonable amount of time.
As such, faster service will lead to more customers, tables turning faster, and ultimately a boost in revenue.
Complete your due diligence regarding data
Gather information regarding your restaurant. Look at when is the busiest hour of the day. What are the popular months of the season? What do customers order most at those times, understanding daily, monthly and seasonal variations is key to the success of your hotel restaurant.
This information can be used to brainstorm innovative methods to improve the experience of the visiting customer. This increases the chance of them visiting again. Keeping it fresh and relevant also helps to spread the word.
Maximize your seating capacity
This one is rather simple. It’s basic math: the more the seating space, the more customers you can accommodate.
Seek the services of an interior designer to space the tables in a manner that maximizes the number of customers you can accommodate at one time. It’s relatively easy to implement, and it’s an effective way to increase the food and beverage revenue in your hotel.
Strive for top-rated room service
Some people just don’t want to leave their room, that is their prerogative. However, not leaving their room shouldn’t mean you can’t maximize the food and beverage revenue in your hotel.
Strive to provide top-rated room service to your guests. The extra cost this might incur will come back with returning guests and word-of-mouth referrals.
Making sure that your room service is just as classy as your restaurant service is important. It will encourage guests to order from their room, increasing your revenue. Use the Hotefy app to enable fast and easy ordering from the guest’s room.
Provide versatile and accomodating pricing
The prices that you charge should reflect the level of your clientele. If it exceeds their average budget they will simply opt for an alternative.
To remain competitive, restaurants should always be aware of the average budgets of their customers – as well as the prices other restaurants are charging for similar food and beverage.
A modern restaurant is a good restaurant
Unless you move with the times, the times will move on ahead of you, and this applies to restaurants as well.
Having an up-to-date menu, with regular additions and trends that are prevalent will entice customers into trying new things. It will give your restaurant the reputation of one that never settles and is always looking to improve and innovate.
Not every meal needs three courses
A small but important factor is that not every person has the time or appetite for a complete three-course meal. As such, there should be options for those who just want to grab a quick bite.
Things like small lunch bites or breakfasts to go could be something that could work, and in turn, increase the food and beverage revenue of your restaurant.
Maintain your hotel rating
Most hoteliers understand what hoops they’ve had to jump through to obtain their official star rating. But maintaining that rating is key. Implementing routine standards in your hotel will ensure you do not become complacent about your ratings. This applies very much so to your restaurant offerings and service.
Where possible, consider striving for the next rating. This is a positive goal for your staff to aim for, as well as another option on how to increase your food and beverage revenue in your hotel.
More hotel revenue help…
So we hope this guide has provided you with some insights on how to increase the food and beverage revenue in your hotel.
We mentioned our Hotefy app, and we couldn’t recommend trying it highly enough. Some hoteliers have seen 30% profit increases almost instantly through using the app. So why not give it a try for your hotel today.