The return of the Room Service in hotels

Room service in hotels was always considered an amenity. An afterthought at most hotels, other than a few luxury hotels.

If you wanted to eat good food while staying in the hotel, go down to the restaurants. Within the room, dining alone, had its advantages, but the options were limited.

Enter Covid 19.

Most of the restaurants in hotels are shut, the lavish buffet that used to be the star attractions are not functioning due to government lockdowns.

The only options left to serve the guest has been room service.

Room service has been enjoying a revival of sorts.

“Definitely people have been ordering room service now that they want to be isolated,” said an industry colleague in a response to a query on Linkedin

People staying in the hotel are travelling out of nessecity. They do not want to expose themselves to crowds .

So what can you do to improve room service in your hotel?

Adopt Technology.

Guest these days are used to technology and apps. Deliver your room service menu as an app or weblink. Many services have emerged as tech companies rush to deliver solutions to the hotel industry.

While choosing apps, look for ease of use both for the guest and for your hotel team

Check what data and reports you can get out of these apps since that will help you analyze and change the menu depending on menu engineering and popularity.

Do a competition review.

I can hear you say that you do it. But really your competitor is no longer another hotel, it is the restaurant next door, whose food is coming into the hotel through restaurant aggregators.

Stand in your lobby during the peak dinner traffic and find out which restaurants and cuisine are popular.

Find out why do guest choose these restaurant.

• Are they popular or serve food that is comfortable
• Are their price point significantly lower than your hotel IRD menu
• Are they able to find more variety

Change your menu, pricing, and room service timings

Once you find out what is popular with your guest and the price point they are comfortable with, make tweaks to your menu. Do a menu engineering every quarter.

Change your menu and the price. Have a few loss leaders to encourage room service orders from your hotel.

If you have adopted technology to deliver a contactless menu, it must be easy for you to change the price and offer very quickly.

Look at the service timing. If an outside restaurant can deliver food to your hotel within 30 minutes, you must aim to deliver food in 15 minute.

Review the menu and change dishes that can be served quickly and efficiently.

Luxury or Convenience

A traditional room service trolley or packaging materials that are quickly served and disposed of. Think about your brand and what guests in your hotel expect.

If they expect luxury, stop at nothing short of it. From Champagne Lunches to in-suite culinary extravaganza lay it all out.

We have started offering barbeque and live sushi bars in our rooms.

Dhiman Majumdar of Mayfair Hotels recently quoted in an interview

However, if they are looking for convenience to grab some food and curl up to their Netflix binge-watching just like while they are at home, offer that to them

You get it, essentially cater to what your guest want, and watch the revenue increase.

Room service in hotels has always been around, now is its time in the limelight. Give it the importance it deserves