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How do hotels cope with the off-season

No matter what industry, there will always be a difference between the off-season and the peak season. The catering industry is no exception. How to deal with the hotel's off-season deserves all entrepreneurs' consideration. So how to deal with the hotel's off-season? What are the solutions? Let's take a look:

First, open source and reduce expenditure for marketing

The person in charge of a restaurant thinks that the sales of river and seafood are not so good in the off-season of these months, and as the weather turns hot, the chances of seafood deterioration and death will increase greatly. Therefore, in the off-season, many restaurants weaken the river seafood, but focus on home-cooked consumption, and strive to make the taste of home-cooked dishes innovative.

The marketing work of restaurants is a continuous business operation that runs through the enterprise, and it will never be a breakpoint. Whether you admit it or not, marketing always exists with the operation of your enterprise, but there are active marketing and passive marketing in terms of situation, and there are differences between successful marketing and failed marketing in terms of results. Therefore, there is no time to take a nap in marketing, whether in the off-season or in the peak season.

How to reduce the cost of restaurants is also an important means of "cutting costs". Every restaurant has a good way to reduce costs. The first is a pay cut, and the chef bears the brunt. The kitchen director of a restaurant told the reporter that the monthly salary of the famous chef was quite rich. Now the salary of the general chef does not exceed 3,111 yuan per month, while the average chef generally only has about 1,111 yuan per month. The number of customers in restaurants has decreased, so reducing waiters is also a means to save costs in many restaurants, especially in hot pot restaurants, where waiters have been reduced by nearly half.

2. Attitude in off-season and peak season

Restaurant marketing is a systematic, planned and coherent business activity, and restaurant marketing should try its best to be ahead of market changes, especially in the case of clear market trends. Chinese restaurants should make a good marketing plan for the off-season after the Spring Festival before the peak season begins, and then make full use of the good popularity during the Spring Festival to carry out the off-season marketing promotion work in advance. Specific methods vary, and the effect is often twice the result with half the effort. If you wait until you slip into the off-season and your popularity is low, the cost of marketing will be higher and it will be more difficult.

more and more restaurants choose to decorate their storefronts in the off-season, which is also called storefront renovation in the catering industry. Since March, Shaoxing Hotel has begun to carry out the overall renovation of the hotel. "After several years of operation, there is a certain gap between the current software and hardware compared with other hotels. Therefore, the off-season is used for renovation to welcome the arrival of the peak season with a new look." A person in charge of the hotel told reporters this way.

Tengji Chef and Chuanmeizi Hot Pot were completely renovated in the off-season last year. The person in charge of these restaurants believes that the catering competition is so fierce now that consumers attach great importance to the hotel environment. Through the renovation of restaurants, popular elements in the catering industry can be increased and the transformation of the hotel can be successfully completed, so that the hotel can be in an invincible position. The person in charge of a restaurant revealed that the renovation cycle of the restaurant is getting shorter and shorter now, from once every five years to once every two to three years now.

Some restaurants are partially renovated during the off-season to reduce costs. If Zuimei Fashion Restaurant, the soft decoration in the restaurant will be slightly adjusted in April, giving people a refreshing feeling. The person in charge of the restaurant believes that the style of fashionable restaurants is not static, and it is a trend to adjust the design of restaurants in a timely manner according to the mood and seasonal changes. However, the adjustment does not have to be a slap in the face, and changing the soft decoration is enough to transform the restaurant into a full personality.

3. Know the market and make a response

This requires making a correct judgment and analysis on the composition of customers, consumption motives and the adjustment trend of the post-holiday catering market according to the market positioning of the restaurant, and then investing the limited marketing resources into the most effective target market.

For the marketing of middle and high-end restaurants, the main customer groups during the Spring Festival peak season are the group consumption of officials (including the government and the army), businesses and other social groups. During this period, many restaurants have no time to take care of ordinary individual customers and neglect them. However, after the Spring Festival for a period of time, the customer structure of the catering market will change. Due to the concentrated surprise consumption before the holiday, the enthusiasm of group consumption will be reduced after the holiday, and the frequency of consumption will also be significantly reduced. The corresponding share of household consumption and individual consumption has risen. During the holiday season, wedding birthday banquets and centenary banquets, which are submerged in many group annual banquets and celebration banquets, will become more prominent in the off-season and become one of the pillar sources of income for many restaurants. Another market, such as exhibitions and tourist groups, almost stopped during the Spring Festival, but it will also become an indispensable part of the catering market after the holiday.

in view of these market changes, restaurants should adjust their marketing methods according to their own positioning, so as to be targeted, simple and effective. For example, mid-range restaurants can launch more affordable family packages and white-collar lunches to attract the consumption of families and white-collar office workers; Introduce "cheap drinks supermarket" to reduce the consumption cost of guests' drinks and effectively overcome the contradiction of guests bringing their own drinks; Plan more detailed and thoughtful marketing plans for wedding birthday banquets and centennial banquets, and give more preferential items to attract the consumption of scheduled wedding birthday banquets and centennial banquets, and so on. Of course, group consumption is still the mainstream for middle and high-end restaurants, so there should be corresponding marketing measures for this part of customers, so we must not lose sight of one thing and lose sight of another.

Fourth, maintain old customers

There is a famous 2: 8 law in marketing theory, that is, 81% of sales are often brought by 21% of customers. Undoubtedly, these 21% customers are the most important food and clothing parents of the restaurant. Restaurants should sort out the customers in the past year, find out who these 21% customers are, and work out special VIP customer maintenance plans, which will be implemented to the letter by well-trained special teams. Customer maintenance is of course a long-term job, but it is particularly important in the off-season.

5. Innovation is the driving force

After a busy peak season, restaurants can't rest temporarily, because in the big market competition environment, business operations are like sailing against the current, and if they don't advance, they will retreat. After the festival, we should make timely adjustments to dishes, promotional materials and the atmosphere in the store according to the changes in solar terms, consumption and marketing themes. Many restaurants like to keep the festive arrangement of the Spring Festival until these decorations are old and tattered, which is the obvious feature of lack of systematic marketing.

The off-season is relative. Some hotel managers told reporters that the off-season of their hotels is not light, which can be a good reference for many restaurants with fear of off-season. Teacher Lu Jing from the School of Economics of Zhejiang University believes that whether it is the off-season of any industry, the test is how to use the strategies of mobilization, innovation and guidance in marketing to make the off-season not dull.

The person in charge of Dynasty Hotel told the reporter that this year's wedding banquet business was particularly hot, which made up for the disadvantage of fewer conference and business guests in the off-season. Therefore, the hotel reached a small climax in the off-season of March, and its turnover increased by more than 11% compared with the same period of last year.

The introduction of innovative dishes in the off-season has injected new vitality into the catering market in the off-season. The reporter learned that most characteristic restaurants in Shaoxing, such as Chuanweiguan, Shaoxing Restaurant and Zuimei, will replace old dishes and introduce brand-new dishes, and the prices are quite affordable, which will undoubtedly arouse many people's appetite.

Artificial festivals are another powerful way for restaurants to cope with the off-season. During these days, celebrations and food festivals in major restaurants are quite frequent, which is a good way to attract popularity. For example, Burton Western Restaurant will launch a theme food festival in the off-season, and British Western Restaurant will soon launch a Vietnamese food festival. These activities with different themes have made the restaurant full of popularity.

6. Grasp the small peaks

In the off-season after the Spring Festival, there are also some small consumption hotspots, such as Women's Day on March 8, many units will organize female employees to have dinner to celebrate, and many female consumers will also meet with friends to enjoy delicious food. There will also be some different exhibition business opportunities in different places. For example, the 2119 spring sugar and wine party will be held in Chengdu in March. At that time, hundreds of thousands of merchants from all over the country and even foreign countries will gather in Rongcheng, and many reception banquets will be arranged to welcome them, which will set off a big catering consumption boom in a short time. Restaurants should make marketing plans as early as possible, carry out marketing promotion work in an orderly manner, and strive to make good gains in these off-season tides.

VII. Advertising Marketing

During the peak season, your advertisements are often submerged in the sea of advertisements. In the off-season, moderate marketing activities combined with moderate advertising will make your restaurant more eye-catching in the whole industry, and the effect of brand promotion will be better, and the effect of marketing activities will be better.

peers are enemies. But there are also many examples in which peers are friends. Aren't Hongxing and Darong and the two most famous catering enterprises in Chengdu the best examples? There is a good metaphor: a chopstick is broken gently, and ten chopsticks are tied together to be extremely solid, so no one can bear it. If restaurants can put aside bad blood and seek a market, the cakes in this market may be made bigger and more fragrant. If a restaurant engages in marketing activities, considering the relationship between input and output, the momentum will certainly not be too great, but if ten or twenty restaurants jointly carry out marketing activities, the momentum will certainly be much greater if everyone's strength is put together, and the results of the activities will naturally be much better.

So, in the peak season, they are busy, and in the off-season, the restaurant bosses should move around more and contact more, and maybe they can meet some sparks and form a temporary alliance partnership.

eight, chopping wood and sharpening knives are correct.

promotions and discounts are not universal in all restaurants. Five-star and other high-end hotels say no to discounts in the off-season of catering. Mr. Wang from the Food and Beverage Department of the International Hotel told the reporter that in the off-season of food and beverage, for five-star hotels, the price will not be considered, and there is no hurry to sort out the details of local or specific benefits. Although the off-season business is quiet, many important tasks of the hotel were completed during this time. This task is to practice "internal strength", which is very important to improve the hotel image.

Some characteristic hotel will also do some basic training in the off-season. The person in charge of a restaurant told the reporter that the off-season is not idle for them. In the off-season, the knives for chopping wood are sharpened, so that the seeds sown in spring can harvest more fruits in autumn. During the off-season, they will strengthen the innovation of chefs' dishes, and will lead hotel chefs to inspect and learn from the classics all over the country, find some good dishes, improve them and introduce them to attract more consumers.