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COVID-19: How pandemic affects F&B trends | Global performance

COVID-19: How pandemic affects F&B trends | Global performance 

 

How the pandemic affects F&B: Now and beyond

Global food and restaurant consultants Baum+Whiteman released its 2021 Food & Beverage Report. Key highlights: 

  • Dining will be different in 2021. And beyond. (Limited menus, lots of masks, pouring your own wine.)
  • Far fewer restaurants. Fewer restaurants could be a good thing. The upshot, eventually, should be higher menu prices charged by fewer restaurants.
  • No more printed menus. Restaurants save printing costs and get better accuracy of orders hitting the kitchen, since the customer may end up doing the work, bypassing the waiter.
  • Chefs will shift to pop-up. With thousands of restaurants shuttered and more to come, star chefs are doing gigs. They’re opening pop-up restaurants in vacant spaces.
  • How permanent are behavioral shifts in eating habits? The focus is on the home: kids not in school, workers not in offices, travel plans shunted. Equally important, rising home delivery from restaurants and online stores exposes consumers to specialty ingredients typically used by restaurants.
  • Restaurant brands in home kitchens. After forced shutdowns, thousands of restaurants pivoted to selling homemade pantry items and sweet goods. That trend accelerates in 2021 because operators love the incremental revenue.
  • Global adventures for the hunkered. While avoiding public spaces, home cooks will seek culinary thrills by exploring exotic ingredients from faraway places. They’ll be shopping locally but eating globally.

Read the full report

https://a0193a7b-04c0-45e2-b939-b1033d2f1ed3.filesusr.com/ugd/0c5d00_22b94849e85e4be78675ff3e5c806f43.pdf 

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Getty Images

Melbourne performance down in October

Reflecting the impact of a second lockdown, Melbourne showed continued lower hotel performance in October, according to preliminary data from STR.

Year-over-year declines remained significant. Comparison with October 2019:

Occupancy: -69.1% to 26.3%

ADR: -47.2% to A99.39 (US$72)

RevPAR: -83.7% to A26.12 (US$19)

Travel restrictions of accommodation services remained in place for October with only “essential” travel permitted. Optimistically, the restrictions have begun to ease in Melbourne with the first steps beginning on October 28, after 111 days of lockdown. The absolute levels across the three metrics were the lowest for any month in STR’s Melbourne database. October was the second consecutive month that occupancy and RevPAR were below 30% and A30, respectively. 

Mixed performance in Jeddah 

Jeddah’s hotel industry reported mixed performance in comparison with recent months, according to preliminary October data from STR. 

Year-over-year declines in the key performance metrics remained significant when compared with October 2019: 

Occupancy: -24.3% to 36.4%

ADR: -15.9% to SAR646.03 (US$172)

RevPAR: -36.3% to SAR234.93 (US$63)

Absolute occupancy was up slightly from September (36.1%) and was the market’s second highest level in the metric since the beginning of the pandemic. The ADR level was the market’s lowest since June, pulling RevPAR lower than any month since July.  

And flat occupancy for London 

STR’s preliminary October 2020 data for London hotels showed relatively flat occupancy compared with the previous month. 

Year-over-year declines remained significant. Comparison with October 2019:

Occupancy: -66.5% to 29.3%

ADR: -44.8% to £89.11 (US$117)

RevPAR: -81.5% to £26.07 (US$34)

Occupancy was up slightly from September (29.2%) but ADR was lower than the £93.55 (US$123) recorded that month.

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