Get Summer-ready: How Hoteliers Can Increase Their F&B Poolside Revenue
Hotels are constantly seeking innovative ways to enhance guest experiences while increasing revenue - and summer time is no exception!
By capitalising on the allure of outdoor settings and creating a unique culinary experience with a seamless online ordering platform, hotels can tap into an additional revenue stream during these warmer months. In this blog, we consider how hotels can leverage poolside dining and mobile dining apps to maximise their profits and elevate guest satisfaction.
Sheraton Grand Mirage, Port Douglas
Why Hoteliers Should Activate Online Poolside Dining
Every hotelier wants to deliver a frictionless experience that satisfies the modern guests’ desires. With today’s guests demanding an instantaneous and self-serve experience, here’s why you should implement online poolside dining:
Maximise the potential of your property - With summer fast approaching, hoteliers can drive revenue across pool decks and beach areas. Offering poolside online ordering reduces the friction of leaving the area to order or having to flag down a waiter.
Parents may be more inclined to order if they do not have to get the children out of the pool or have someone watch them while they order. The thirsty sunbather may browse the menu and order a refreshing drink, without ever leaving their sunbed!
Save resources - Hotels can manage orders online rather than having staff members cover the pool area to take guest orders.
This reduces the need for a large physical staff presence and lower the stress on your team, enabling hotels to manage vast pool areas, process large order volumes (which go direct to the kitchen) and spend more time delivering an exceptional customer service to guests.
How Hoteliers Can Get Summer-Ready & Drive Poolside Profits
Summer is the busy season all hoteliers look forward to. To deliver the best guest experience, you must ensure that your teams and resources are ready to meet the increased demand from guests during their stay. Let’s take a look at how you can get summer-ready:-
Implement an online ordering platform
Make the most of your dining services by introducing an online ordering platform or expanding your existing one to include poolside delivery. Guests can order food and beverages to be delivered to their desired location, and use other services such as the hiring of cabanas, or making a table reservation for dinner - there’s no need for your guests to move a muscle or interrupt their sunbathing!
Promote the use of your platform by displaying QR codes (linked to your digital menu) in your poolside lounging area, on each sunbed, or cabana, and when guests first check-in. Individual QR codes on sunbeds also help determine your guest’s exact location to help with deliveries.
Specially curated menus
Enhance the poolside dining experience by offering tempting food and drinks that your guests crave and are simple for your hotel to fulfil on scale - canned cocktails are a particular favourite!
This means eliminating food items and drinks that are commonly associated with colder seasons and incorporating fresh, light, and seasonal ingredients to create a menu that compliments the poolside atmosphere. From refreshing salads and wraps to grilled seafood and signature cocktails, the menu should be carefully crafted to enhance the outdoor dining experience. Your guests are on holiday, after all!
Platform-exclusive promotions and packages
Through your online platform, you can easily display exclusive promotions and special summer offers. Offering special packages through your app will entice guests into spending more which helps increase revenue. With a mobile dining app, it is easy to chop and change these promotions throughout the season - daily, weekly, or however you please.
You will likely see an increase in app usage if you include a call-to-action referencing the summer offers on the QR codes placed around the hotel - ‘Download & order on our app for summer discounts’.
Unique dining concepts to drive spending
Keep your guests interested through unique dining concepts for all to enjoy by the pool. These can range from having BBQs, tapas, and cocktail hours for your guests to look forward to and enjoy. Keeping your guests on their toes with unique dining concepts will entice them to return for poolside dining, which in turn will drive guest spending.
You could consider having a themed lunch that changes every day - many resorts and multiple-outlet hotels favour this.
Beautiful imagery and description
You’ve gone through all that effort to create amazing food and drinks for your guests to enjoy, but simply listing the menu items is not enough! When browsing online, it is often the pictures that sell - not the text. Ensuring that you have high-quality images that showcase your menu, along with accurate, enticing descriptions, will increase orders and upells.
How IRIS Can Help You Boost Your Poolside Dining Revenue
Be inspired by these hotels that have implemented poolside mobile dining:-
Sheraton Grand Mirage, Port Douglas
“We implemented poolside dining where guests can easily access and peruse the digital menus and order online via QR codes (or via the Bonvoy app).
With all the sun loungers and cabanas numbered, staff are provided with accurate delivery locations which helps streamline processes, reduce delivery times and avoid any delays.
With online ordering, we’ve achieved a higher average spend (as guest tend to order more) and a 51% increase in revenue year on year.
It provides a flexible and convenient digital experience for our guests and has been a great addition to the hotel.”
Resort and Theme Park Hotels, USA
“We’ve placed QR codes on over 500 lounge chairs in the pool decks, providing guests with easy and direct access to the digital menus where they can order a range of food and drinks. There’s no need to wait for a server - guests hit the QR code and order away!
The pool decks are so large it’s time-consuming to serve all the guests and cover such a large area in person, in a timely and efficient manner.
Sales at the pools have doubled year on year thanks to our ability to reach more guests and serve more covers than ever before – we did over 800 covers on one day last year which has never been done before mobile dining.
The specially curated menu provides food and drinks items that meet guest demand and are simple for the hotel to fulfil on the scale – canned cocktails are a particular favourite!”
Poolside Ordering Benefits for Hoteliers and Guests
Implementing poolside F&B ordering is a win-win-win for hoteliers, their staff, and guests. Take a look below:-
Seamless Ordering - no need to flag down a waiter; just browse, tap and order. Next thing you know, your order is on its way - no need to move a muscle or interrupt your sunbathing!
Increased reach - customers will no longer have to wait for a menu or look for one as they can access it on their phones whenever they need it. This will help you reach 100% of your guests in a way that suits them!
Process more orders and reduce customer wait times – with true POS integration, guest orders will be processed immediately, meaning that your kitchen and bar staff can work on them straight away. Customer wait times are reduced so the user experience is improved, and staff are happier and more productive.
Accurate orders - with guests self-ordering, errors are eliminated, meaning fewer orders being returned to the kitchen to be remade, less waste and more satisfied customers.
Higher order value – through your curated menu, you can have suitable items for your guests to order and enjoy by the pool. Enhancing the guest experience further and driving spend.
Fewer staff required - you will no longer need staff to wait around the poolside to take orders, which helps drive the focus toward delivering exceptional customer service. This will also help you save valuable resources and only service an area when required.
More sustainable and practical – no one wants to order through soggy and dirty menus by the pool. Having an online ordering platform will prevent this and reduces paper waste throughout your hotel.
Conclusion
Online poolside dining presents hotels with an excellent opportunity to increase revenue and provide guests with a unique and memorable experience. By offering a personalised online menu, tailoring menus, implementing unique concepts, promoting special packages and delivering a stellar service, hotels can unlock the revenue potential of poolside dining. By leveraging this strategy, hotels can set themselves apart from the competition
Not only is the hotel generating more revenue and value, but they’re also providing their guests with a more efficient, enjoyable and fulfilling service.
