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You are a hotel food and beverage director or hotel director and marketing working in China. Your job this year is to spend your advertising and marketing budget to promote the dining outlets in your hotel. You know you have great chefs, a fine location, and fantastic support from the hotel's owners and managers. But you are still worried about maximizing every dollar to bring in more diners to your outlets. What should you do?<\/p>\n
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For many hotels in China, their food and beverage specials are already at a disadvantage. Why? Though many China hotels rely on their guests to dine in-house, they also rely on revenue generated by diners who live around the hotel. Yet as more top hotels open in China's major cities, many hotels are facing a slow decline in the number of local Chinese and expatriates coming in to dine at their restaurants. The hotels might have the best Western and Asian chefs on staff, but they just are not able to draw large contingents of diners.<\/p>\n
Raw Fish Equals A Raw Deal<\/strong> However one 5-Star hotel recently tried to step into this market with their own Teppanyaki special. They offered guests unlimited food for RMB198. Drinks were charged separately, and most disappointing was a 15% service charge tacked onto each bill. So at hotel prices, 2 bottles of beer will cost 200RMB, plus the RMB198 for the meal, and tack on 15% for service, and the meal all of a sudden becomes at least 450RMB per person. That is the same price as three people dining at one of the more famous Teppanyaki restaurants in Shanghai.<\/p>\n Apparently the hotel thought that diners would be enticed by the idea of eating in a 5-star venue. But there is always a trade-off among price, atmosphere, and quality. Moreover, the hotel's Teppanyaki restaurant does not have its chefs cook at the table in front of guests, a novelty many diners expect and receive at the less-expensive, more vibrant locales around Shanghai.<\/p>\n The hotel's restaurant did try to overcome its deficiencies in price by offering a dining voucher that gave a free meal to the fourth person sitting at each table. This meant that four people had to go dine together, and one person in the group would get a free meal. That person still had to purchase their own drinks–and pay service charge on that–but the meal itself was free. It is no wonder that customers saw this offer as a bad deal and the hotel only saw a few customers come for the special.<\/p>\n Because the hotel is already at a disadvantage because diners are unfamiliar with its outlets, charging such exorbitant prices for the same meal down the street was a poor ploy. In the future, if the hotel hopes to turn diners towards its Teppanyaki specials, it will need to prove that it does offer a better value–whether through environment, kitsch, price, or quality.<\/p>\n No Card, No Entrance<\/strong> The dining loyalty club was offered to dining guests after they paid for a meal worth over 500RMB. However, the card was not free. The hotel wanted to target the highest echelons of Beijing society, so they decided to charge customers an additional 1200RMB for ownership of the card–similar to how American Express and Diners Club operate. Then, on subsequent visits the guest could use that newly purchased loyalty card to gain further benefits and discounts at the hotel's dining outlets.<\/p>\n The hotel spent a lot of money on advertising the loyalty card via print and online media. They targeted all the expatriate magazines, expatriate email newsletters, local newspapers like Beijing Youth Daily, and other niches.<\/p>\n After working on the campaign for two months, the hotel cancelled the campaign. It was considered a failure. After all their time and money, only a handful of the loyalty cards had been sold, and most of those were given away at discounted prices.<\/p>\n During the campaign the hotel had switched to different media, thinking that the media were the obstacle to consumer acceptance of their product. However, in the end, the director of food and beverage at the hotel had to admit that it was his own unreasonable offer and product, and not the media used, that were the hindrance to acceptance of his loyalty card.<\/p>\n Make Yourself Unique<\/strong> Centro is a wine and cocktail lounge located in the lobby of Beijing's Kerry Center Hotel. But when people think of Centro, they do not necessarily think of it as a hotel lounge. Instead, they think of it as a stand-alone outlet offering great drinks and entertainment. And this is how Centro has done it right!<\/p>\n For expatriates living in Beijing 15-20 years ago, there were almost no bars and cafes. Aside from the hotel bar at the Beijing Hotel and later at the Friendship Hotel and Frank's Place, there were no watering holes. So, back then it was fine to go and drink at a hotel bar, and everyone did–expatriates, and a few local locals, alike.<\/p>\n But times have changed, and Centro has merged with those new trends. Nowadays, expatriates and Chinese looking to woo clients will rarely take them to a hotel restaurant and bar. And why should they? With so many fantastically unique venues sprouting in China's major cities, the stodgy hotel wine and dine outlet is a no-no. But Centro is unique, all the way from its decor to the way it advertises itself.<\/p>\n When Centro opened a few years ago, it made its mark with some rather racy advertising showing scantily clad women, leering lovingly at the reader. The ads had women draped over wooden bar stools, and for many ads there was no indication what exactly was being advertised. The campaign became such a hit, other advertising agencies and venues tried to copy the Centro creative. Customers knew that Centro was different, and the hotel did the right thing by creating a separate brand.<\/p>\n Too often the top hotels in China wrap their own image around their restaurants thinking that guests will be drawn in off the street by the hotel's image alone. A few can make this happen, such as the St. Regis Danielli's outlet in Pudong, but most hotels fail to deliver such a unique experience and value proposition. That unique experience often begins with a unique brand, and that is what the Kerry Center Hotel in Beijing did with Centro. When my friends meet at Centro, they do not think that they are at the Kerry. Instead, they are only focused on Centro.<\/p>\n Many hotels based in China use a shotgun approach to enticing diners into their food outlets. The hotels will concentrate on flogging all the outlets at once (like a food court) or they will forget that Chinese cities are filled with other great dining outlets. Bottom line, they do not remember that they must make their dining experiences unique.<\/p>\n The key to bringing diners in, and then having them return again, is the same for a hotel restaurant as much as it is for any other cafe or bistro operating outside a hotel. Hoteliers are faced with increasing competition and must concentrate on great value coupled with unique dining experiences. Anything less is unpalatable.<\/p>\n By Danny Levinson You are a hotel food and beverage director or hotel director and marketing working in China. Your job this year is to spend your advertising and marketing budget to promote the dining outlets in your hotel. You know you have great chefs, a fine location, and fantastic support from the hotel's owners and managers. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12723],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35016\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.chinahospitalitynews.com\/cn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Expatriates and locals living in Shanghai are fond of eating at the many Japanese Teppanyaki outlets dotting the city. The offerings at the restaurants are usually the same: RMB150 will get you unlimited food and beverage, including all-you-can-drink sake and beer. It is always fun to visit the Teppanyaki restaurants in Shanghai with a group of friends because you know exactly what your meal will cost and you can be a little rambunctious. Most importantly, the unlimited food tastes great.<\/p>\n
Being a member of a hospitality VIP club is always great. You get special attention, deals, and offers. A 5-star hotel in Beijing two years ago tried to start their own dining loyalty program, and they targeted both expatriates and local Beijingers.<\/p>\n
So what can a hotel do to make its food and beverage outlets stand out from the crowd? The best example I have run across is Beijing Kerry Center Hotel's Centro.<\/p>\n
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Publisher, ChinaHospitalityNews.com<\/strong>
<\/font>Danny has worked in China for over 8 years and travels frequently, mostly to Hong Kong, Beijing, and Shanghai. His views are his own and do not represent those of this publication, its investors, owners, or other staff. To comment on this article please email Danny at chinahospitalitynews@gmail.com<\/a>–though he can't always promise a response, he will read all messages.<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"