Hotels told 'charge rent' on in-house F&B outlets

 Hotels should charge rent to their F&B outlets in order to force them to lift the standard of their offering, said Wajih Sleiman, associate director of F&B consultancy Future Food.

“By charging rent, hotel restaurants become more accountable and those operating them will be forced to work harder to turn in profits,” said Sleiman, “even if this is done purely as an internal accounting procedure.

“That automatically forces those at the helm of the restaurant to look at ways of improving their menus, service, marketing initiatives and overall customer experience in order to meet the stricter financial demands incurred by paying rent,” he added.

Sleiman said hotels should regard F&B as a serious profit centre and not an amenity that is there to add value to the property and increase room rates.

“Many, not all, hotel operators are more focused on room sales. That automatically places F&B on the back seat. Concepts are placed within the property to appease hotel guests, improve the hotel standing within the various listings and allow for higher room rates to be charged. There is a vast room for improvement; even in the ever-necessary all-day dining, strong concepts could be put in place to improve these offers.”

Although there are hotels with popular F&B concepts that are financially very successful, “a true test to hotel concepts is whether they would be commercially viable in non hotel settings,” said Sleiman.

“With the influx of the licensed outlets within various free zones, hotels no longer have monopoly over this segment. Furthermore, unless they realise that this market also caters to the non-alcohol drinkers and their F&B outlets also compete with non-licensed causal eateries, the outlook for hotel restaurants is challenging,” Sleiman warned.