Hospitality and Related Services - Tourism: Principles, Practices, Philosophies - page 137

Food Services

Fast-Food
Restaurants

Traditional
Restaurants

Cafeterias

Independent Chain Chain Independent In-Hotel

Ethnic

Ethnic

Specialty Minimal

Service

Specialty

Ethnic Local Full Service

Local Local

Broad Menu

Figure 6.4

Food services
structure.

burner, then serving from larger dishes onto the guest s plate. The kinds and amounts of each food

item are chosen individually. By contrast, in Russian service, the entire plate, with predetermined
portions, is served to each guest.
Menus can be of two types,

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a la carte menu consists of a complete
list of all the food items being offered on that day. The patron then chooses the individual items
desired. In table d

a la carte and table d ' h ote. The

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hote, a combination of items is chosen.
Eating and drinking places are big business. Although much of this activity is local, eating and
drinking are favorite pastimes of travelers, and the food service industry would face dif cult times
without the tourist market. See Figure 6.4 for the structure of the food service industry.
The

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(NRA) projected that food industry sales for 2010 would
total $580 billion and equal 4 percent of U.S. gross domestic product. This level is 2.5 percent over
2009 sales, which is an improvement over the 1.2 percent and 2.4 percent negative growth that
the industry experienced in 2008 and 2009, respectively. The nation

National Restaurant Association

s 945,000 restaurants provide
employment for 12.7 million people, over 9 percent of the U.S. workforce, making the industry
the largest private-sector employer in the nation. For only the second time in nearly half a century, the
restaurant industry lost jobs in 2009. Despite the losses, the industry still outperformed the national
economy, and job growth resumed in 2010. By 2020, the industry is projected to employ 14 million
people

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an increase of 1.3 million jobs. The typical employee in a food service occupation is female,
under 30 years of age, single, working part-time. The food service industry employs more minority
managers than any other retail industry. Travelers contribute about $130 billion to food service sales
each year, whether for a coffee shop breakfast, a dinner on an airline, a sandwich from a bus station
vending machine, or a ten-course dinner on a cruise ship. Travelers, including foreign visitors, spend
more money on food than anything else except transportation, and travelers account for about one-
fourth of the total sales in the food service industry. 4
Social media will become more critical to restaurant marketing. A good plan and solid under-
standing of these tools

—

— including Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, and YouTube — can help operators mitigate

the effects of economic environment. has moved online, and more consumers use

the Web to browse menus, make reservations, and get recommendations from other diners.
Restaurants

'' Word of mouth ''

use of e-mail, Internet, and cell phone text messages in marketing efforts is also a
growing trend.
Restaurant operators continue to step up their efforts to go green, investing in energy-ef cient
equipment and fixtures, using recyclable materials and reducing their water use. Green initiatives not only
help manage costs, they can also drive traf c. Four of ten full service and 31 percent of quick-service

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