The client

A casino hotel in the Caribbean.

What did Hotel Solutions Partnership achieve for the client?

A fresh, daring and energetic food & beverage image was created for the casino. With the changes we made total head count, revenue, and average check went up and casino revenue per head increased significantly. Guest satisfaction scores increased as well.

Background

The hotel was looking to keep its casino guests in-house. There was no physical space for an additional restaurant and the operators did not want to give up an existing theme. Any additional space had to deliver increased profitability.
Consultants: Stephan Juliusburger

Methodology

The casino area had four restaurants serving dinner: Fine Dining Seafood (70 seats), Steakhouse (160 seats), Buffet (220 seats), Deli (135 seats).

Our research showed the top two concepts for casino-goers were steakhouse and Chinese. The casino already had a well-rated steakhouse, so Chinese was judged to be the way forward.

There were various challenges:
– Location – no empty space
– Authenticity – if Chinese a high quality cuisine was required for the visiting Asian gamblers
– Labour and talent Cost – work permits were expensive and limited, salaries and benefits high
– Cannibalization – the objective was to add incremental customers, not move from existing concepts

1. Location – The steakhouse dining room was split in two; one half was redesigned in a Chinese motif, giving three equally sized concept rooms.
– The steakhouse kitchen was redesigned with an authentic five-wok burner area added
– Opening days for the three rooms were balanced giving guests all three choices over an average stay.

2. Authenticity – A Chinese Head Chef from a top restaurant and two Hong Kong wok chefs were recruited. Hotel Solutions Partnership Ltd.

3. Cost of Talent – All chefs were cross-trained in steakhouse and Chinese menus so that no additional staff, outside the wok chefs were required.

4. Labour Cost – An extensive training program was written to fill the knowledge gap and delivered trained servers and line chefs from existing labour.

5. Cannibalization – The steakhouse was repositioned, improving average check whilst holding covers. The Chinese concept entered filling the mid-range gap.