Hotel Restaurants Need to Stop Relying on Guests, says Bruno Miranda, Cluster General Manager of Sé Catedral Hotel Porto and Arts Hotel Porto

This article was developed by Bruno Miranda, Board Member of ADHP and Cluster General Manager of Sé Catedral Hotel Porto, Tapestry Collection by Hilton and Arts Hotel Porto, Tapestry Collection by Hilton, for Publituris Hotelaria.

For decades, food and beverage in hospitality was seen as a complement to accommodation. It existed to serve breakfast, provide room service, support events, and offer guests a convenient dining option. In many hotels, this is still the case. The question is simple: does this still make sense?

In an increasingly competitive market, where margins are under pressure from rising operating costs and growing consumer expectations, relying on occupancy rates to ensure a restaurant’s success is an increasingly fragile strategy. Hotel restaurants need to stop relying on guests.

Throughout my professional experience, one reality has always intrigued me: why are some hotel restaurants consistently full, attracting both local residents and visitors, while others remain practically invisible to people passing by? This question led me to explore the subject further through research into the profitability of food and beverage outlets within the hotel sector.

The findings confirmed what many managers have already pointed out. Restaurants that are able to attract external customers are more resilient, less dependent on hotel occupancy, and better positioned to generate revenue consistently. Rather than serving merely as a support service for accommodation, they become true business units, while also strengthening brand awareness and the hotel’s connection with the surrounding community. But attracting this market requires a shift in mindset.

Local customers do not choose hotels. They choose restaurants. They care little about the hotel’s category or the international brand it represents. They are looking for a distinctive experience, an appealing atmosphere, consistent service, and a value proposition that makes the visit worthwhile. This is precisely where many hotels continue to fall short. They continue to promote “the hotel restaurant,” when the real challenge is to create a restaurant that simply happens to be located inside a hotel.

The difference may seem subtle. In reality, it changes everything. Projects that build their own identity, communicate directly with the local community, and become part of the city’s social and cultural dynamics gain access to a much broader market than the one generated exclusively by hotel guests. 

The restaurant stops following the hotel’s occupancy cycles and begins generating its own demand throughout the year. This does not mean there is a single formula for success. Every hotel has a different location, positioning, and target audience. But there is one principle that I believe applies across the board: food and beverage can no longer be managed as a complementary service. It must be treated as an independent business unit, with clear objectives, its own commercial strategy, defined positioning, and an identity capable of competing with any restaurant in the city.

Hotels that understand this shift will be better prepared to face a market where competing solely on accommodation is no longer enough. Because in the future, the success of a hotel restaurant will not depend only on the guests staying in the building, but on its ability to attract people who never intended to stay there in the first place. Perhaps the time has come to stop asking how to bring hotel guests into the restaurant and start asking how to make the city want to walk into the hotel.