Here's What You Missed in April
The buzziest food festivals, texture is the next umami, and analog in luxury marketing. Plus, here's how to sell private dining rooms.
Sell an Experience, Not Just a Room
Private dining has always been one of the most attractive revenue streams in the hospitality business. The challenge is that too often it’s positioned like inventory: a room to fill, a minimum to hit, a line item to sell. In a landscape where every operator is competing for the same birthday celebrations and team dinners that approach starts to flatten fast. The operators pulling ahead are reframing the pitch entirely.
A New Era of Food Festivals has Arrived
A widely popular influencer-produced food festival returned for its third year—offering a clear blueprint for what younger consumers actually want, and how they engage with restaurants and food & beverage brands.
Texture is the Next Umami
Over the past decades, the term "umami" became mainstream, shorthand for savory, depth, richness, and craveability. Soon after recipes for miso everything took off; from miso brownies to miso caramel lattes. Texture is the new touchpoint for craveability, especially as younger generations are actively seeking out multi-texture experiences.
Analog Is the New Luxury
We live in an attention economy where every platform, app, brand, email, text, notification, streaming service and algorithm is competing for our focus. In this hyper-stimulating environment, the ability to choose where we direct our attention — or to turn it off entirely — is becoming a luxury. Hotels and travel operators are rising to the occasion with experiences designed to meet this need, and some restaurants are following suit too.
