Over half of Millennials would dine in a restaurant where aspects of service are automated, with automation and robotics key drivers for the hospitality industry in 2019.
This is the results of a new survey sponsored by Planday, the workforce collaboration software company, which uncovered three trends that are shaping the restaurant sector as we head into the new year.
Driver 1: Millennials are more spontaneous and are shifting around £1 billion in spending a year to delivery services
Restaurants face increasing challenges in forecasting demand and must rethink how they structure service, as home delivery orders become more popular and very low numbers of people make advanced reservations for in-restaurant dining.
- A fifth of millennials (20% compared to 9% Gen X) say they go out less to restaurants now because they are getting more food delivered that they would previously have gone out to eat. This represents a shift worth around £1 billion a year towards food delivery and away from in-restaurant dining.
- Only 9% of millennials now say they are likely to make restaurant bookings and are willing to spend on average 14% less than Gen X on a meal.
Driver 2: Millennials embrace robots and automation
Majority of UK millennials say they are ready for some restaurant services to be delivered by robots, allowing staff to focus on important ‘human’ interactions.
- 52% of millennials indicate they would dine in a restaurant where ordering and payments are fully automated, compared to only 39% of Gen X diners.
- Over two-thirds of millennials (71%) say they wouldn’t be against their food being delivered by a robot.
- However, millennials still crave human interaction in their dining experiences as over half (51%) would still like to give a compliment or complaint to a person rather than a machine.
Driver 3: Consumers turn away from fast food and expect more sustainable, healthy options:
Consumer tastes are changing as millennials see a future where plant-based, environmentally friendly approach will win out over traditionally unhealthy fast foods.
- For millennials the future is vegan – nearly half of all millennials (49%) predict vegan restaurants will be the most in demand in the next two years.
- In fact, 75% of millennials thought at least one of the following types of restaurants would be most in demand: vegan, vegetarian or those with good environmental credentials. In comparison, only 25% of millennials thought fast food restaurants will be in the most demand over the next two years.
- Nearly half (47%) of all respondents placed reduced food waste as their top sustainable priority. Only 11% of consumers indicated that sustainability didn’t matter to them.
