The F&B sector is crucial within a hotel or resort's facilities. Besides shaping the guest experience and customer satisfaction, it is a significant revenue generator.
However, both these facilities and their management are complex. They get crowded. And in properties with hundreds of people, operational efficiency is crucial. Both to maximize profits and to enhance guest well-being.
Nobody likes queues or waiting. We live in an era of immediacy, and hoteliers know they have no excuses.
They must implement systems that make everything flow. They must focus on the well-being of their guests and staff.
In a sector with a shortage of employees for bars and restaurants, it is necessary to empower personnel with F&B technology trends that allow them to serve more people in less time and solutions that enable them to manage restaurant tables quickly, simply, intuitively, and from their devices.
In this post, we will explain the F&B trends of 2024, which are to increase operational efficiency when it comes to Food and Beverage in the hotel industry, empower personnel in this sector, and maximize benefits and the guest experience through advances in F&B technology.
In this post, you will find solutions for the challenges of the industry: the shortage of staff, long queues and waiting times, achieving excellence when it comes to guest satisfaction, liberating staff from mechanical duties, and optimizing hotel operations.
Mobile Table Management: Eliminating Queues, Wait Times, and Liberating Staff
A hotel or resort with restaurants can become chaotic, especially during staff shortages. Hundreds, or even thousands, of people may want to book a table at once.
Queues, discomfort, errors by the staff having to handle a lot of information quickly leading to mistakes...
That's why one of the hotel F&B trends of the year is real-time table and restaurant management tailor made for hotels.
We refer to the technology available through the hotel's apps that allows guests to check bar and restaurant schedules and availability in real time and from any location.
Moreover, guests can reserve a table from their smartphones at any time, without going to the reception, with a couple of taps on their screen, and, as important as this, without queues.
But there's more...
The staff is freed from these mechanical tasks and can receive real-time information about the status of the dining areas. Thus, they can focus on what matters: the guest experience.
And the level of errors due to maneuvering in chaos will be reduced.
Furthermore, the most advanced hotel F&B table manager will consider the particular circumstances of hotels regarding any restaurant. A hotel can have guests in its dining areas - people staying on the premises - and visitors who do not remain in the property's rooms.
Digital Menu: Enhancing Visibility and Modernizing the Experience
A table and restaurant manager via smartphone is fundamental for a smooth experience for your guests and employees. But there must be coherence. If the guest can check and book restaurants from their mobile, in a digitized experience, the menus must live up to that experience.
That is why another hotel F&B trend for 2024 is the digitalization of menus. For several reasons:
- For greater visibility of the gastronomic offer.
- For eco-friendly purposes and agility to update menus.
- For the digital experience of visually appealing menu reading.
- Because it shortens steps in staff processes within a restaurant.
If all businesses worldwide take care of their shop windows, why would the hotel industry, specifically the F&B sector in hotels and resorts, be any different?
Check the social media. These visually appealing digital menus are captivating guests and consumers. It is a bandwagon that the hotel industry should jump into.
Mobile Ordering: Solving the Staff Shortage in F&B
There are no waiters. Hotels need help finding personnel willing to work serving food and beverages. And that's a big problem, especially in hotels with hundreds of guests expecting five-star service.
Queues and waits immediately lead to bad reviews. To reduce revenue. To dissatisfaction.
Is there a way to solve this big problem?
Yes. It's called the F&B technology of Mobile Ordering.
We refer to the system that, through QR codes and NFC, allows a guest to scan, place an order, and pay for it. The order immediately reaches the kitchen without needing a waiter's intervention.
This system shortens step waiting times and allows your staff to work without stress, even at peak times.
It is a simple system that can be implemented through a hotel's guest app. In this way, hotels are quickly solving a problem causing many headaches, loss of income, a decrease in their online reputation, and much stress for the scarce staff in high-end hospitality.
Real-time Surveys: Monitoring Experiences in Bars and Restaurants
As we have seen in this article, the background of these innovations is diverse:
On the one hand, it aims to free and empower the staff. On the other hand, the key is that the guest experience does not suffer and that the hotel's revenue, at a minimum, does not decrease.
Restaurant managers in hotels and resorts who use guest apps and mobile ordering are crucial for facing the challenge.
But there is a third pivotal trend in 2024:
Instant Feedback tools. They are solutions integrated into the hotel's apps that allow staff to launch non-intrusive and quick-to-respond questions to their guests or clients.
Especially after room service, dinner, or a culinary experience on a rooftop, it is crucial to understand what went wrong and to act before the guest checks out.
This allows for pleasantly surprising hotel guests, avoiding negative reviews by acting on time and detecting trends and errors that the staff will take seriously to prevent them from happening again.
Technology will support the hotel F&B sector in high-end hospitality in 2024.
Adapt or die: the digital challenge for top hotels and resorts
In summary, the hotel F&B trends for 2024 are redefining how hotels manage their food and beverage services, prioritizing efficiency, guest comfort, and service quality.
In 2024, guests are more tech-savvy and informed than ever before. They expect seamless, immediate services without queues, driven by their awareness of businesses leveraging technology to optimize operations.
💫 In essence, technology serves as a benchmark for excellence in guest satisfaction. Hotels that integrate innovative solutions not only meet but exceed guest expectations, solidifying their reputation as leaders in the industry.
