Bringing Room Service into the 21st Century

Here at SuitePad, we analyzed over 30,000 in-room food and drink orders to give you a glimpse of guest ordering behaviors.

Once the ultimate representation of luxury, hotel room service has nose-dived in popularity in the last couple of decades. Guests have become used to high-end restaurant dining in their own home thanks to app-based delivery companies such as Ubereats, Deliveroo, and DoorDash. Hotels used to only have cheap take-out outlets to compete with, but now that potentially every restaurant within a 2-mile radius is offering delivery services, guests have more choice than ever before. 

In addition, the fierce competition between restaurants means many restauranteurs have adopted digital marketing strategies and data analysis tactics, finding out what guests really want and offering it to them at a great price. Meanwhile, hotels have mainly focused on keeping their in-house restaurants up-to-date with the wider restaurant industry but have neglected to give their room service menus the same kind of attention. Here at SuitePad, we think room service deserves more, and it’s time that hotels brought their room service offerings into the 21st century.

Giving guests what they want

Finding out what guests really want is the only way that you’ll be able to optimize your room service menu in order to tempt them away from app-based delivery services. To help show you what guests want from their hotel’s room service menu, we collected order data from over 30,000 orders in over 600 hotels to find out what the top 5 room service food and drinks orders were. We then divided these by hotel type and benchmarked the results to show the percentage share of each order type at each hotel type. 

The results show that guests at the various hotel types had vastly different preferences when it came to in-room dining. For example, guests at MICE hotels tended to order burgers and cola drinks more than any other, while guests at city hotels were twice as likely to order beer to their room than guests at design and lifestyle hotels. You can get your hands on this invaluable data in our latest white paper, titled “Boost Room Service Sales at Your Hotel: Using Data-Driven Insights to Optimize Your Hotel’s In-Room Dining Strategy”. Get Your Free White Paper: Boost Room Service Sales at Your Hotel.

Boosting in-room dining sales during the global pandemic 

The global pandemic has had a huge impact on the hotel industry. Hotels are finally reopening in many places once again but with restrictions that make it difficult to maximize profits. This situation, however, can be seen as an opportunity for hoteliers who want to revamp their hotel’s room service menu. With social distancing regulations in place and limits to the number of people that can dine in hotel dining halls, more guests will be wanting to dine in their rooms. Take advantage of this opportunity by offering them what they really want to eat and encourage them to choose your hotel over take-out outlets by removing order charges that are such a large barrier to ordering for many guests.

The efforts you make now will not only benefit you in the long run, they will also ensure that your hotel retains its reputation as a provider of great in-room dining experiences even once the global pandemic is long-gone.

Using big data to help you optimize the in-room dining experience for guests

The world has moved on since offering great food was the key to success. Collecting data on diners’ preferences is giving restaurants the edge over hotels, but it’s time that hotels fought back! The most efficient and effective way of gathering order data is using digital devices such as in-room tablets. These allow you to collect data on exactly what guests order, use push notifications to promote special offers, and give them an ordering experience that’s worthy of the 21st century. If you’re looking to boost in-room dining revenue at your hotel, download our latest white paper and or book a demo with a SuitePad representative today!

_{- Published on July 13, 2020}