Hotel restaurants: how to promote your offer and maximize your occupancy rate?

How many French people think of reserving a table in a hotel restaurant without actually being a hotel guest? Very few. A real problem for restaurateurs.

Yet hotel restaurants are still restaurants, with their own cuisine, products, dining room and staff. We explain the specific challenges and the actions taken by restaurateurs to meet them.

Almost unanimous: hotel restaurants are running below capacity

Hotel restaurants struggle to attract outside customers

On the face of it, it would seem that hotel restaurants have a "head start" over other restaurants, since they already have resident customers. A hotel with 63% of its rooms occupied could provide 1/3 of its restaurant's covers with these same customers. Except thatit still has 2/3 of the room to fill by attracting outside customers.

Credits Dandy Kitchen

Here's where the difficulty comes in : lunch or dinner in a hotel restaurant is not really part of the French way of life, because they don't perceive the restaurant as a separate establishment from the hotel.

Lack of distinct identity penalizes hotel restaurants

A restaurant bearing the same name as the hotel brand thus exists only as a "part of the hotel". Today, many establishments distinguish themselves from the hotel by adding a qualifier dedicated to the restaurant to the brand name.

Credits M Bistro

Such is the case with M Bistro whose name stands out from that of the Mariott Champs Elysées while retaining the "M". The hotel restaurant offers brunch every Sunday. This is an opportunity to attract a new clientele that would not normally be attracted to this type of establishment. Our customer, the Hotel Dandy, part of the Elegancia group, also differentiates its restaurant by calling it the Dandy Kitchen. Others go further and turn the hotel restaurant into a brand in its own right.

Creating and operating a strong brand offers excellent prospects for profitability

Some hotels have taken this logic a step further, turning their restaurants into veritable profit centers.

Credits Philippe Lopez

Such is the case with Groupe Barrière, which has developed the Fouquet's brand. The majority of customers come exclusively to eat at Fouquet's - and no longer "in the Barrière hotel restaurant". " The Fouquet's brand was created to reinforce the image of our restaurants and attract more customers from outside the hotels," explains Pierre-Louis Renou, Manager for the Cannes establishments. The Group has thus succeeded in building a strong restaurant brand, so strong that people no longer automatically associate it with hotels.

Credits Nick Solares

Other hotels offer exclusive restaurant deals to attract guests. In New York, the Thompson Central Park NY is home to Burger Joint's only restaurant. Burger Joint is located behind a curtain within the hotel. It has its own atypical decor, different from the rest of the establishment, its own website and its own social networks. The concept is promoted both on site and online, and it works: on average, you have to wait 1 hour to taste their burgers!

Credits Akira Back

Our client Prince de Galles, a luxury Parisian hotel, is also putting its restaurant in the spotlight. With its world-renowned chef, the hotel is offering a unique experience in its Akira Back restaurant. A place that invites both hotel and non-hotel guests to enjoy a Japanese gastronomic experience in Paris. Already at the helm of 21 restaurants around the world, the chef's renown is attracting a curious clientele, who can finally experience his cuisine with this first restaurant in Europe.

Hotel restaurants have their own specific characteristics compared to conventional restaurants

Depending on their location and product range, hotels reach out-of-town guests at certain times. Hotels close to business districts welcome many business lunches, but have more difficulty with weekend services. The Melia Paris La Défense is banking on its rooftoop, now known as the Skyline Bar, to attract a new clientele at weekends.

The OFF Paris Seine hotel, the first hotel built entirely on the Seine, offers a unique dining experience. Enjoy the chef's dishes not only overlooking the Seine, but also the hotel swimming pool! A restaurant and bar showcased within the OFF Paris Seine, attracting a fervent clientele curious about new experiences, as well as tourists.

So what are the right initiatives to take to attract customers to a hotel restaurant in the departments that need them most?

Implement both local and digital initiatives for hotel restaurants

Giving the restaurant an identity appears to be the first way to give it a chance.

A name, distinct from that of the hotel, a sign, a chef, a website: it must become visible both physically and online as an establishment in its own right.

Such is the case with Limon, a restaurant in the Marignan Champs Elysées hotel. The restaurant offers its own unique experience. A magnificent location, a design setting, a menu and cuisine orchestrated by chef Adrien Milliand. The restaurant now has its own websitewith a description that doesn't mention the Marignan directly, and its own accounts. social media. It appears as a restaurant in its own right.

Once its identity has been established, the restaurant must promote itself and use the right digital tools to manage its digital marketing effectively and profitably.

Communicating online as a restaurant, rather than part of the hotel, strengthens the establishment's presence

90% of French people choose their restaurant online. You have to exist on the Internet independently of the hotel. Good referencing, digital digital communication with a website, a Facebook page and Instagram pages. These are all essential elements for maximizing your restaurant's visibility.

Our client Les Caryatides restaurant, part of the Alfred Sommier hotel in Paris, uses social media to great effect. Its own Instagram account serves as a real visibility lever and sets it apart from the hotel.

Making good use of social media will help you reach a wider target audience. We also recommend strengthening local roots to maximize restaurant occupancy.

A local presence allows you to introduce your offer to those who are most likely to become loyal customers.

Consumers trust products whose origins they know. Working with local producers means getting closer to your customers.

Credits Bernhard Winkelmann

Some go even further, growing their own vegetables, fruit, herbs... within the hotel itself. The Brach restaurant, with chef Adam Bentalha at the helm, harvests its produce from thehotel 's rooftop vegetable garden in the heart of Paris. A henhouse even provides the eggs!

Local anchoring can also take the form of clever diversifications, to reinforce specific offers and enhance the restaurant's reputation.

Intelligently diversifying the offer to make hotel restaurants a profitable place to live

Offer new activities to attract a broader customer base

Diversification allows hotel restaurants to capitalize on their strengths. Strengths such as location and facilities. Organizing events, such as artists' exhibitions, or ephemeral collaborations with other brands or restaurants, helps to reach a new target.

Credits Nicolas Anetson

Chouchou Hotel invites restaurants to set up shop in the hotel, rather than creating a new restaurant attached to the hotel. In the form of a "food market", our client previously collaborated with La Mer à Boire and La Grande Bouffe. A good way ofattracting an outside clientele already familiar with the collaborative restaurants. Thursday and Sunday evenings are devoted to performances on La Scène du lieu. Young artists perform in front of the restaurant.

Credits Edgar Hotel

Another excellent example of diversification is our customer Edgar Hôtel & Restaurant. They take advantage of their incredible terrace in the heart of Paris to organize events: jazz concerts, live cooking, "les mardis du terroir"... They even did a collab with luxury brand Prada during Fashion Week, and publicized it using #feelslikeprada! Many influential people responded. To preserve these moments of notoriety, the hotel's Instagram page keeps the stories as highlights.

By taking advantage of the hotel's existing facilities, the restaurant can develop a new offering for outside customers.

Hotels naturally serve brunch-style breakfasts (eggs, cheese, cold cuts, etc.).

Building on their existing strengths, the Marriott Champ Elysée formulated a brunch offer to attract outside customers. One of the means used to communicate this diversification was collaboration with Influencers. Influencer lesparisdelaura was invited to try their brunch and shared her experience on social media and her blog. Her young, urban audience, for whom brunch is part of daily life, were thus able to discover Mariott's offer.

The afternoon-tea offer is an opportunity for hotels tocompensate for the afternoon's slack hours and generate new sales opportunities. The Shangri La, the Westminster Hotel and the Crillon have all developed a Tea Time offer.

Another example of intelligent diversification: Olivier Thomas, manager of the Pullman in Blagnac near Toulouse, suffers from the proximity of company canteens at lunchtime. He has therefore developed an offer that brings real value and a competitive edge: "packages", lunch formulas to which he adds access to the swimming pool, a massage or a sports class on the hotel premises.

Going one step further by welcoming a strong concept gives the hotel restaurant new appeal

Also from the Grape Hospitality group: the Mercure Sophia Antipolis has welcomed a restaurant with a strong concept: "Dans le noir". Here, diners are served in total darkness by blind diners. The experience thus goes beyond the simple meal, as the senses are turned upside down: deprived of sight, customers can completely reassess their perception of taste. This initiative has raised the profile of the restaurant and attracted new customers. Such was the success of this ephemeral collaboration that it has been extended.

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