Does your hospitality properties have a restaurant?

If you have a restaurant and you’re only catering to your hotel guests, then you’re leaving money on the table.

You might believe you have a good hotel restaurant, in fact, you might believe you have a great restaurant but without good local patronage how would you know for sure.

Hotel restaurants are normally not on the radar of potential customers were looking for a place to eat. Traditionally, hotel restaurants have a difficult time attracting locals.

So what can you do to improve your chances?

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Here are some ideas that have worked with many hospitality properties.

1. Consider trying a new name, identity and theme for your restaurant, and promote it to the local market separately from the hotel.

2. Use social media and the local press to market your restaurant. You can contact journalists from local publications and invite them for a meal on the house in return for a review.

3. Set up a competition in the local press and online, with a prize of a meal for four with wine. The contest will cost very little and if done right can be very effective.

4. Offer a choice of menus; for families and vegetarian options.

5. Highlight what makes you stand apart from your competitors, other restaurants. (Is it better service, bar and lounge areas to relax before and after a meal, space for kids to run around, easy parking, a rural getaway).

6. Create a separate website for your restaurant.

7. Be sure your restaurant is listed in the local tourist & travel guides.

8. A great way to keep both your staff and customers excited is to offer menus that are seasonal and that are changed regularly.

9. Use local suppliers and declare this in detail on your menu, your website and any marketing you do. Local suppliers will support you by advertising you verbally.

10. Make sure all other local hospitality properties have your menus. It would also be very useful to invite the head concierge or front desk receptionists from these properties for a free meal. We talked about cross-promoting earlier and know they will be more likely to recommend your restaurant to their hotel guests if they can talk from a first-hand experience.

11. Get your local businesses involved. Contact and invite the local business associations in for a familiarisation dinner. Offer a time-limited discount to two or three of the largest nearby employers. This could be a 20% discount to their employees, which they could promote in-house and by putting a time limit on the discount, you encourage people to use it sooner rather than later.

12. You could offer theme nights, music events, wine weekends and private special events.

13. Make sure each guest receives a warm welcome and that you and your employees go the extra mile to make it a great experience.

14. Ask for your customer’s opinions. Talk with them and make feedback cards available.

15. Make sure to incorporate a method to gather all new customer data information such as e-mail addresses and add them to your newsletter list. Newsletters could be a monthly news/recipe/events letter.

16. Market your restaurant as a destination and attract foodies who are looking for a weekend away and offer reduced room rates for diners who stay over.

17. Offer gift certificates to local charities, school or social events. This can work well for your branding.

18. Make your restaurant is easy to find. Good well-illuminated signage and easy to find parking is important if you don’t want your potential customers to get lost or frustrated and find one of your competitors instead.

19. Make sure you have an organisational strategy in place and that everyone knows exactly what their duties are.

You have to live up to your promise – there is no sense in trying any of the strategies I have mentioned if the quality or service is going to be subpar. I had mentioned before that a restaurant inspector I know told me the first two things he looks for is whether the toilet is clean and the lettuce is fresh.

It is a good place to start.

Last word of advice:

Don’t try to be everything to everyone, find what you’re great at and do it to the best of your ability.

Whenever I see a hospitality property restaurant or dining area and hear it is empty most of the day, I see revenue being thrown out the window.

In Conclusion

Making your hospitality property restaurant accessible to the local market is a wonderful way to garner an additional revenue stream but a way to offset profit losses during the low season.

With this in mind, we want to challenge you.

We want to challenge you to the 6 Day Challenge.

We at Keystone HDC have taken our years of experience as hospitality property authorities and have produced the

“6 Day Challenge“

A video series with many actionable tips & techniques that you can take and use to help improve your properties patronage and profit.

And the most exciting thing with this video series– it’s 100% Free!

This 6 Day Challenge will take you step by step through the process of operating a successful hospitality property, including:

Determining What Type of Owner/Manager You Are

How to Set Up an Organisational Structure

Secrets to Great Customer Service

How to Market Effectively

How to Benefit From Social Media

How to Make Your Guests Want to Return

Whether you are operating a one-room bed & breakfast or a 500 room luxury hotel, there is always something new you could learn.

As a famous quote says

“Never stop learning, because life never stops teaching”

It is important as a hospitality property owner or manager that you never stop learning.

So, what have you got to lose? Are you up for the challenge?

Visit

keystonehospitalitydevelopment.com/6-day-challenge-log-in-here

Good Luck!