A New Side to Marketing

This article is really interesting because it introduces a new side of marketing to the restaurant industry. In our innovative world today the restaurant industry is now taking advantage of the social media in order to market their restaurants. No longer is the industry using the traditional methods of advertising in local newspapers or relying on word-of-mouth throughout the neighborhood. Now, social media such as Facebook or Twitter allows restaurant’s to have an accelerated growth in its customer base. The use of the internet allows businesses, whether big, small, or local, to market with unlimited ad space and airtime.

“Today, 70 percent of local businesses are marketing through Facebook—more than anywhere else on the Internet.” Luckily, Facebook is an easy site to manage correctly if a company performs proper maintenance and pays attention to always updating at a steady pace. “With this in mind, social media-savvy restaurant owners are acquiring and retaining new customers at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising.” Most importantly, businesses can differentiate through creative and attentive marketing in social media.

A restaurant in Manhattan, Zengo, believes that “Facebook is a platform for two-way communication between a restaurant and its clientele.” Through Facebook, Zengo retains their customers by actively posting events, recipes, interesting stories and Facebook-specific specials for their fans. Even through Facebook, Zengo customers can make reservations and sign up for Zengo's mailing list. Since there are over 500 million active Facebook users where 50 percent are logging in everyday, restaurant owners must realize that engaging the users is crucial for their business.

Other businesses such as The Burger Shoppe in NYC offer a free side of fries or onion rings to loyal customers who have checked in via Foursquare. This form of marketing allows an increase in clientele by a word-of-mouth buzz, drawing new customers, and most importantly retaining current ones.

Such forms of marketing are essential to a business because of the influence of the technological environment. Advances in communication through Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare may be one of the most influential factors affecting modern business. It allows small businesses to compete with large corporations around the world by marketing to keep a loyal clientele. Most likely, many people customers are already using such social media daily therefore businesses should take advantage of the innovative marketing approach.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wiley-cerilli/social-media-marketing-5-_b_835294.html#s253224&title=Nombe

100 of 900 Starbucks Stores Closed in Japan

Japan is Starbucks' biggest market in Asia, and Tokyo was actually the first location where the company opened a store outside the United States back in 1996.

However, in the aftermath of the tragic earthquake and tsunami, Starbucks Corp. closed 100 of its 900 stores in the country. The company stated that “preliminary reports indicate that several Starbucks stores in the affected areas in the east have sustained from moderate to significant damage”.

All of Starbucks' coffee shops in Japan not company-owned, but licensed, and all stores in Western Japan are still open. However, because of the company's decision to close a large number of its stores in the country, Starbucks shares fell 2.5% in the past week.

Starbucks said it is still trying to verify the safety of its employees. It is good to know that the company is still a loyal practicer of CSR and gives social and environmental concequences priority over maximizing profit and raising the price of its shares. Starbucks is one of the few large corporations that has been able to restore consumer confidence in financial markets.

http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20110314-710056.html

The Differentiation Game

This article showed about the luxury hotel business is down. But there were still plenty of customers who wanted luxury services.

According to the Buyer Interactive Trade Alliance and Conference(BITAC), 42% of the attendees agreed the recover about hotel industry and additional 32% agreed the luxury market has already stabilized.

Thus, the hotel’s differentiation strategy is changed from seeking potential customers to offering the right services to customers to come. Although this strategy is hard question for CEO to execute, but offering the highly differentiated services combined with unique experiences became important.

Christophe Vallet, Founder & Managing Director of Authentic Hotels, said “My guests are looking for a good experience. But they also want you to be able to personalize experiences to excite them.” He thought this trend was the changed meaning of the ‘true luxe.’ For example, it is more crucial to deliver the customers natural materials such as fresh tomatoes with bio olive oil and bio wine rather than offering them luxury rooms decorated with gold and diamonds and marble. Also he thought plenty of clients wanted "bio" luxe.

Looking this article, we can summarize this with the Meg Prendergast’s word who is Senior Vice President of the Gettys Group, a hospitality design firm. He said “You can create the most beautiful property, but you have to have the service to differentiate you,” said Prendergast. This means that each hotel must be focused their service based on their experience because in the long run, all of hotels might offer the similar services with the best labors. Thus, they didn’t differentiate with others by focusing the better services without experience.

http://apps.netbiscuits.com/178809/HIMobile/articleDetail.aspx;jsessionid=m9e03+9culvbJGj0k6dTNw**?articleid=16513

Taiwan Hotels Benefit from Japan Disaster

Taiwan hotel shares were up sharply on Friday with expectations of droves of people arriving in Taiwan from Japan.

The heavily increased profit in Taiwan hotels is so different from the reverse movements in global economic due to an earthquake and a tsunami in Japan. Not only is the stock market affected but even food markets are shocked. However, many people who had toured in Japan or who are relatives of government workers fly to Taiwan to avoid the unsafe aftermath accompanying the earthquake.

“Taiwanese media reported Friday that the U.S. had evacuated some citizens from Japan to Taiwan, leading investors to buy Taiwan hotel shares in anticipation that more would be coming.”

There will be more and more people from all over the world leaving Japan and arriving in Taiwan. Some people think that the refuges will give a lift to hotel business in Taiwan and will help Taiwan hotel make a great profit. “Some local hotels also have plans to launch special packages for Japanese planning extended stays in Taiwan. Japan has long been a crucial source of revenue for Taiwan’s hospitality industry.” The refuges from Japan looks like a gift for Taiwan.

However, I don’t think the business should consider their profit in the first place in such a terrible disaster. The disaster brings the refuges not only physical strike but also mental strike. In my opinion, the Taiwan hotel should focus on pacifying the refuges and helping them recover from the terrible nightmare. The ethic should play a more vital place than profit in this special situation.

http://blogs.wsj.com/exchange/2011/03/18/taiwan-hotels-prepare-for-u-s-flight-from-japan/

Tsunami affects Restaurant Industry

Like the BP oil spill in the Caribbean, the tsunami in Japan has impacted the restaurant and food industry significantly. Given the specific market Japan has to offer (seafood, seaweed, kobe beef, etc.), many restaurants and markets have been impacted. The earthquake that set off the nuclear reactors resulted in “elevated levels of radiation in spinach and milk at farms up to 90 miles away…”.

It was said that the Tsukiji fish market in central Tokyo (largest in the world) was not impacted directly by the earthquake, but was impacted by the source of their food. Tohoku (coastal epicenter of the earthquake) was severely damaged, and the Tsukiji market will be closed down for a while.

A chef named Tomohito Narasaki who works at a restaurant called Sushizanmai stated that “scallops, sardines and oysters from Tohoku are no longer available… Millions of dollars’ worth of bluefin tuna, red snapper and yellowtail farmed off Tohoku was instantly destroyed.”

Given the fact that sushi is now produced world-wide and not just in Japan, fish and sushi supplies can be shipped to Japan until the damage is gone, but the overall food source for the majority of restaurants in Japan is momentarily depleted.

It will be interesting to see how Japan copes with this set back as the fish is the peoples’ primary food source. Restaurants tend to pride themselves on having the highest quality food, and when their source of food no longer exists, it puts the restaurant in a difficult situation. I found it to be very interesting that a natural disaster has the ability to cripple the food and restaurant industry to the degree that it has in Japan.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/20/world/asia/20food.html?_r=1&scp=4&sq=restaurant%20industry&st=cse

Informational Interview

Company: Hilton Hotel, South Korea
Position: PR Manager
Sector: PR
Email: skincare03@nate.com
Phone: 82-10-5522-0640

1. Tell the contact about your assignment. Inquire about their thoughts about investment opportunities in the industry.
Food industry becomes important. Hotel opened another restaurant outside under the hotel brand. For example, Chosun hotel opened Opkins beer restaurants in the in COEX and W Hotel opened Pizzahill restaurant. In addition, raising Wedding Business becomes important business in the Hotel industry.

2. In which companies, sectors, segments do they see the greatest potential for growth?
W Hotel introduces Long-Term-Guest Program. At first, it was program for the businessman, it became for the children’s of top 1% the rich. Hotel focused on lots of entertainments such as clubs, innovative designed room.

3. Tell me about your job at Hilton Hotel. What are your responsibilities?
Actually, my job includes News release, Press Officer, Public Relationship preparation, Making internal / external hotel Magazine, and Press Relation (promoting hotel events)

4. What types of entry-level jobs does your organization offer?
There are lots of entry-level jobs. PR / Sales department promotes hotel rooms for large groups of foreign companies. Marketing department induces guests to pay for the services hotel offered. Banquet department only managed conventional events. Engineering department serves facilities management. F&O (front-officer) directly meets the guest and give information to the guests.

5. What skills sets do you look for in potential candidates?
Of course, personal service mind and the professional attitude is the most basic elements for this industry. Also, they must be fluent in foreign language especially English and Japanese.

6. Are there particular jobs in your company where you have seen an increase and/or decline in recent years? What was the cause?
House-keeping and Engineering fields have been decreased because of outsourcing. Also Secretarial Jobs who serves basic simple tasks decreased because of outsourcing. However, the demand for personalize service such as customer-facing business increased regardless of the IT development.

7. How do companies in your industry differentiate themselves?
Internationally Hilton hotel is leading Convention Business. There are not many hotels to offered convention business services because these services needs banquet rooms and lots of audio and light facilities. Also, they offers well-established translational technologies

Informational Interview

Interviewed:
Marty Grims (White Dog Café)
Phone #: (610) 296-1896
Email Address: wayne@whitedog.com
Address: White Dog Cafe
200 West Lancaster Avenue
Wayne, PA 19087

The restaurant industry has many relevant aspects of business to take into consideration, therefore, I decided to ask general questions to develop a strong understanding of the restaurant industry as a whole. Martin Grims is the owner of nine very successful restaurants in the Philadelphia area.

Mr. Grims stated that there are a few areas in the restaurant industry that are likely to become more popular in time. Mr. Grims stated that the most significant change in the industry is the use of organic and locally grown food. He stated that he has started using ingredients of these sorts to provide a more healthy diet for his customers and to maintain competitive with other restaurants who are doing the same thing.

When asked about what Mr. Grims personally does as a business owner, he stated that he sees himself as the “overseer of quality and enforcer of standards.” He thinks that it is his job to ensure that the food is of high quality and to operate the financial side of the business.

Mr. Grims offers entry-level jobs as a dishwasher, food runner, busboy, and preparatory cook. He said it is easy for entry level workers to work their way up if they are efficient and work well with people. When looking for new employees, he stated that he looks for people to be “outgoing, warm and full of personality.” He suggested that customer/employee relations are in some ways just as important as the quality of the food, so it is important to be balanced.

From an economic standpoint, Mr. Grims reports that there is an abundance of people looking for jobs at his restaurants due to the state of the economy forcing many large companies to lay off their employees. He then went on to say that his restaurants have not taken much of a hit due to the economy, but is aware of the situation many other restaurants and companies are currently facing. Mr. Grims expects that in the next few years, it will be even more important to hire people based on their personality, as customer/employee relations are becoming more and more important. Due to the economy, he stated, more people are “open minded and willing to work for entrepreneurial enterprises.”

Lastly, when asked about how restaurants differentiate themselves from one another, Mr. Grims said that the quality of food, service, ambiance, location, and price are the primary factors that determine success. Successful restaurants embody all of these qualities at a high level, and that is what sets restaurants apart from one another.

In conclusion, I developed a stronger sense of the restaurant industry as a whole. I personally was not aware of the necessity to incorporate organic and locally grown foods into recipes, and how important personality and the ability to relate to many different types of people truly are. While I was not looking for a job during the interview, I learned about many crucial tactics restaurant owners partake in to make their restaurant successful.