I was worried there for a moment that wide ties and bell bottoms were coming back in style. That 1970s fad, fortunately, has not returned. Clothes have gotten much more casual. Men in suits with tennis shoes, baggy sweats, and pajamas to work? Will these trends make a shift in style?
Casinos are also trying to adapt to changes in trends and deciding if they are just a fad or a significant shift in how business is done moving forward. Let’s look at some of them.
| Trend | Narrative | Industry Thoughts | Fad, Shift, or Blah? |
| Food courts replacing buffets | Following the closure of buffets during COVID, many operators continued to keep these areas closed and sought alternatives to these very product intensive food outlets. Food courts operated directly or franchised to outside vendors became the solution. | Customers who loved all-you-can-eat buffets seemingly have accepted this change and are comfortable seeking alternative food options in the hopes of staying healthy. | SHIFT |
| Digital vs. Paper Menus | With the fear of paper transmitting COVID, many operators used technology to provide menus via the scanning of a QR Code. | A frustrating “temporary” solution we hope. Many of these QR code menus didn’t work and were rarely updated. Older people couldn’t figure it out and often asked for a paper copy anyway. Operators were perceived as lazy for not providing a clean “hard copy” of their menu. | FAD |
| Reservation Platforms vs. Booking Direct | Labor is expensive and hiring has become more and more difficult. Reservation applications, such as Open Table, have become the solution to take reservations for restaurants. Hotels have long accepted on-line platforms for receiving reservations. | This is here to stay. The technology is just too good, and customers have embraced this from airlines and hotels using them for years. The one drawback is the flexibility to move the tables efficiently when you want to take tables and the app says you are closed. | SHIFT |
| Automatic Service Charge vs. Gratuity | Labor is expensive and wage hikes have not done good things for the service industry. Operators have attempted to charge auto-service fees to recoup the wages and using them in the form of recovered compensation. | This is highly confusing for customers and leaves them feeling like they are being taken advantage of. Often, the server will say that they don’t receive much of the auto-service fee and make the guest feel guilty to add more gratuity. This is an awful trend, and we hope that this resolves itself somehow. | BLAH |
| Daily Housekeeping vs. On-request Service | Further COVID implications, housekeeping moved away from daily cleaning to on-request. | This has become one of the biggest positive impacts to the operation and with very little guest impact. Should you wish to have your room cleaned daily, you can request it, but a staggering 71% (AHLA) only request on the third day. | SHIFT |
| Digital Kiosks vs. Front Desk Registration at Check-in to a Hotel | Like banks and airlines, many hotels have tried to work with a digital kiosk to check guests into the hotel, with keys being printed directly from the kiosk. The concept would allow for shorter lines and zero interaction, speeding service. | This has been complicated to get right for any hotel. Vegas might be the largest attempter at this trend; many people want to talk to the agent and understand more about the property than what the website lists. There are also many issues with this technology, and we don’t see this trend sticking around just yet. | FAD |
| Phone as Your Room Key vs. Traditional Key | As with the above, technology is moving towards using your phone or application to do most everything. Guests lose their key, but they don’t lose their phone. Opening your door with your phone app works seamlessly. | Many of the larger chains and casino hotels have attempted to use this tech to open the door. The jury is still out, especially with older guests who can’t figure out how to access the app from the app store. | FAD |
| Traditional Casino Experience vs. On-line Gaming and Digital Sports Betting | With the deregulation of on-line gaming and sports betting across the United States and Canada (and many other countries as well) there has been a shift in how people think about gaming. | It is too soon to measure if there has been a lift in overall gaming revenue, or a realignment of revenues between traditional gaming and online betting. We believe that there is a legitimate shift here that needs to be addressed by all casino leadership. | SHIFT |
| Postcards and Billboards vs. Digital Marketing and Push Notifications | With advertising adapting to a more digital world, print media is becoming much more limited. Digital options are relatively free outside of the creative development and applications used. | Many casinos are still holding strong to traditional marketing as they cater to older demographics and are comfortable with the tools they’ve always used. More and more casinos, however, are embracing this shift and the analytics prove this is a much more effective method to reach your customers. | SHIFT |
| Hardwood Floors in Hotel Rooms vs. Sticky Carpet | Soft goods renovations every five to seven years has been pushed to seven to nine years, and the wear and tear of the property is showing more and more. Many operators have moved to a hardwood floor solution to mitigate the wear of carpet and ease of cleaning. | Hardwood is easier to clean, but we find that many operators just move the dirt around instead of properly cleaning the floor. The hardwood is also colder on the feet and perhaps slippery when wet. However, there is nothing worse than a sticky, dirty, grimy, crunchie carpet. | BLAH |
| Non-smoking Casinos vs. Smoking (Vape) Casinos | It has always been perceived that with gambling, people want the other ‘sins’ to accompany them, like drinking, smoking and other distractions. Many casinos have dabbled with a non-smoking area and have carefully tracked the differences of coin-in between the two areas. | The shift is becoming more evident as more and more casinos are converting their properties to 100% smoke-free casinos. With some exceptions, where the casino chooses to provide smoking as the differentiator between the competitors, most have not seen a loss in revenues. | SHIFT |
| $20 Water vs. Free Water | Hotel and casino properties have always looked to capture incremental revenues. Water sales have been a trend for many years. | There is a big pushback by customers refusing to pay ridiculous prices for water. Dehydration and the need for water should not be a reason to extort money from our guests for a comfort item. Also, with the addition of water stations to refill bottles, people are buying less packaged water. | FAD |
| Airplane vs. Teleportation | Back to the Future, Star Trek, and even Elon Musk all allude to the real possibility. | Six hours in economy from Seattle to New York and all of us are ready for this. | Let’s make it happen! |
Many of these trends continue to evolve over many years and have only recently become shifts in our business. COVID and the incredible advancements in technology move these concepts along, but it is only with the demand of our customers that these shifts become mainstays. Fads will always go away as our customers themselves evolve beyond the trend of the moment.
When is the last time you audited your food and beverage operation? Whether you’re ready to expand your gaming property to include a hotel or adding more F&B or retail outlets, Raving’s hospitality team will help you create consistent and measurable training standards, policies and procedures, protocols and goals, property wide.
