Millennials, despite being the generation of the crisis, travel and spend in restaurants. Indeed, a third of the annual income of hoteliers and restaurateurs today comes from the millennial generation. This is what emerges from the research “Finding the balance: human touch vs high tech”, conducted by the CMS law firm, one of the main players in the hospitality sector.
Research shows that most Millennials (about 60%) spend for holidays and eating out about 26% of their total income, thus representing a pool of potential customers of great importance for the sector. According to data, in fact, Millennials go on vacation for an average of 2,5 weeks a year and eat in a restaurant four times a month.
The survey looked at owners, operators, investors and managers of hotels and restaurants in 10 countries around the world in reference to the effect produced by the millennial generation in their sector. But that's not all: CMS also investigated the importance of technology in the lifestyle choices of 5.000 Millennials in 18 countries. It came out that in restaurants the most appreciated technological innovations are the possibility of ordering food and drinks before their arrival (47%), the ability to pay via an app (44%) and ordering food electronically once in the restaurant (34%). To address the expected wishes of customers, 52% of restaurateurs have implemented their own technology, and 28% even intend to implement an interactive menu that displays food selections in 3D.
However, an overwhelming 76% of millennials still prefer “human contact” during their culinary experience, placing significant value on the possibility of interacting with people. It therefore appears that hoteliers and restaurateurs overestimate the importance of technology in attracting young people, while 76% of these still prefer to be able to interact with a person for check-in/check-out, denying the alleged "end of human contact". And if 28% of restaurateurs plan to introduce virtual 3D entertainment in their establishments, only 16% of the interviewees expressed a positive opinion about this type of service.
As far as overnight stays are concerned, analyzing specifically the satisfaction of the various tech factors of the structures, a fast WiFi network ranks first (66%), followed by the presence of an app for the services available (49%), the possibility of listening to streaming music (37%) and the presence of a tablet for managing the room (35%).
But again and against expectations, technology isn't exactly the only priority: research shows that for millennials when choosing hotels the cost is still of the utmost importance (38%) and the location (17%), while the available technology has a relevance of 4% and only 22% consider the offer of tech services when booking a hotel. However, great importance is attributed to social media ratings: it appears that 25% of millennials are ready to pay more for restaurants with excellent ratings.
Read the full report.
