These are the 5 biggest changes in the hospitality industry in 2021
Everyone will agree that 2020 has been a bizarre year for restaurants and cafés. How will this year’s crazy circumstances affect the future of the hospitality industry? We’ll make a few predictions.
Some restaurants and cafés have had to close their doors for good. They watched their bank accounts drain, government support was insufficient and the prospect of reopening was too uncertain, so they could no longer make the business work financially. Other restaurants launched completely new activities during the forced closure. Takeaway meals, of course, or a collaboration with a hotel nearby, or even highly creative solutions such as a temporary candy store or a delicatessen shop. When the hospitality industry is allowed to reopen, will everything return to normal in no time? Or has the restaurant world changed permanently?
Predicted by Yelp
Yelp’s Trend Forecast 2021 predicts a number of developments. The trend report was compiled by Yelp, an American website where people can leave reviews, including reviews of hospitality businesses. Yelp’s trend watchers based the hospitality industry trend report on more than 21 million posts.
1. New technology is here to stay
You had to be able to pay for takeaway meals and coffee to go quickly, but above all without contact. Voilà: suddenly there was a QR code next to the cash register, so you could pay for that chai latte or brilliant Katsu Kip with a Tikkie or another payment request. Prediction: those QR codes on tables or at the cash register will be around for a while, because they’re incredibly convenient.
2. Extra sales in restaurants
To keep their heads above water, restaurants started selling all kinds of things. Takeaway meals, but also a bottle of wine or even an entire wine package, their signature cookies and that fantastic spice blend, as well as things that would not normally enter the kitchen, such as flowers, sweets or tableware: hospitality entrepreneurs seized every opportunity they saw to generate revenue. Some restaurant owners may discover that it’s actually quite useful to earn a little extra this way – and increase brand awareness. That delicious tea? You may still be able to buy it at the restaurant next year.
3. Even fine dining to go
At first, takeaway meals were mainly quick and simple: soup, spare ribs, cheese fondue. But it soon became clear that creative chefs could prepare and provide their guests with an entire four-course meal in a convenient way. Bake, heat up or stir something together at home and voilà: you practically look like a Michelin-starred chef yourself. Yelp expects this development to continue: clever dinners for home that far surpass the level of shawarma or pizza.
4. Delivery food gets better
There’s nothing wrong with the shawarma and pizza from point 3, but if you order food more often, you want it to be tasty and fresh. Since meal delivery has really taken off over the past nine months, the quality of home-delivered food will continue to improve. No greasy grub, but something with vitamins and fresh ingredients: according to Yelp, that’s the delivery meal of the future.
5. We love the hospitality industry
De Dijk already sang it: ‘A man only knows what he’s missing when it isn’t there.’ Months without a café, coffee shop, quick lunch, romantic dinner or drinks around a table have made it painfully clear that we miss the hospitality industry enormously. Many people supported their favourite places, in whatever way they could. Moreover, our own fumbling in the kitchen made it clear how difficult it actually is to run a professional restaurant. And that love and respect will remain: because of that stupid coronavirus crisis, we have learned to appreciate the hospitality industry all over again.
Read also:
- 19 restaurant owners getting creative: what did you name your business?
- Inside story: hospitality entrepreneur on what it’s like to run a restaurant during coronavirus
- Strange coronavirus eating habit: snacking in the car
Source: Eat This
