Hospitality

What do guests want in a hotel lobby? Not as much as you’d think. They just want great food, an inviting place to work, and a cocktail (or mocktail) at the end of the day. Let’s take a closer look at how to incorporate these three essentials into hotel lobby design: food, work, and drinks.

You’ve optimized room rates. You’ve improved your F&B program. What else can you do to increase your hotel’s revenue?

Get social. We’re not talking about social media, but rather using social events to encourage guests to spend more and attract more revenue-generating customers from the community. Here are just a few types of events that hotels around the world have embraced.

Come for work. Stay for fun.

Bleisure—combining business and leisure travel—is an increasingly popular way to see the world. Experts predict the bleisure travel market will grow substantially in the years ahead, reaching $731.4 billion by 2032.

From a guest’s perspective, it’s great to have your company pay for your airfare and then tack on a little vacation at your own expense. From an employer’s perspective, people work harder: 59% of employees said traveling and exploring new places inspired them to be more productive with their work, according to a global survey by Booking.com. And from hospitality pros’ perspective, bleisure travelers are a desirable and profitable customer segment. Here’s how to attract them.

Creating a successful hotel F&B (food and beverage) program is hard.

It’s labor-intensive. It requires skill, vision, and market savvy. Volatile food pricing eats into profits. F&B brings in less revenue than rooms do.

And yet, it’s essential. A hotel’s culinary reputation is the magic ingredient that attracts guests and keeps them coming back. How can you elevate your dining and make that magic happen?

Here are three ways to experience Sri Lanka:

1. Join a tour that packs in as many temples and ruins as possible. Be sure to ride the famous Kandy-Ella train, pushing other tourists out of the way so you can get cute Instagram pics.
2. Spend three weeks walking the newly created Pekoe Trail, a 186-mile (300 km) trail through the central highlands that visits tea plantations, wild parks, and remote villages.
3. Check into a beach resort in Unawatuna. Wake up, surf, hang with the locals. Repeat.

More and more people are choosing options like B or C for their vacations — opportunities to step out of life’s hectic current and live in the moment. It’s all part of the slow travel trend.

Less single-use plastic? Energy-saving guestroom appliances? On-site composting? 

“I think if you asked 100 different travelers to define what they mean by sustainable, they would probably give 100 different answers,” Jeremy Sampson, CEO of the global nonprofit The Travel Foundation, told HotelDive. 

Not only that, but hotel guests don’t necessarily believe the sustainability hype. While 74% of travelers surveyed for Booking.com’s Sustainable Travel Report 2023 said they wanted more sustainable choices, 39% didn’t trust that travel options labeled  “sustainable” really are better for the environment.  

Hotel sustainability certification programs are one way to build trust and make it easier for travelers to choose greener options. But which of these certifications is the right choice for your business — and what must a hotel do to earn one?

Hotel dining is having a moment.

Hotel restaurants used to have a stodgy, old-school reputation as “a three-meal-a-day café where you just get a club sandwich and a burger,” Ewart Wardhaugh, executive chef at the Epicurean Hotel Atlanta, tells FSR magazine. “But now, the food and beverage within a lot of hotels is just as good as a freestanding restaurant, if not better because they have better support.”

While many hotels’ F&B profits have struggled to rebound post-pandemic, the industry is seeing increases in F&B revenue per occupied room. The drivers: more in-room dining, menu price increases, and event revenue.

Working to boost your F&B in 2023? Look to these trends.

If glamping is luxury camping for indoorsy people, then Field Station is its natural extension: a low-frills hotel for outdoorsy people.

A new hospitality concept from AutoCamp, Field Station promises “an all-in-one gear, food and lodging experience” that serves as a launching point for outdoor adventure. Picture simple, spacious rooms with extra storage, on-site equipment rentals and service, and educational programming.

What’s behind this new hospitality trend? Let’s take a dive into the emerging niche of outdoor adventure hotels.

In the 2010s, large hotel chains noticed the growing popularity of boutique hotels: chic urban properties that seduced younger guests with impeccable design and quirky charm. “We can do that too,” the big chains said… and thus began an explosion of millennial-focused lifestyle hotel brands.

How have these brands fared since? And what can hoteliers learn from the new generation of lifestyle hotels?

Conventions and trade shows are back in a big way — but the crowd of attendees is smaller.

People are buying more business-class airfares — but companies continue to limit their employees’ travel.

Business travel within the United States is picking up steam — but international business travel may not recover fully until 2026.

The upshot: Work-related travel is bouncing back from its COVID hiatus, but the hospitality industry shouldn’t expect things to be exactly the same. What can hotel operators do to win back the business traveler?