Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Restaurant diners are getting older

The NPD Group has just published research showing that in the US  restaurant visits from Millennials have dropped steadily throughout the past five years. But, visits from their parents and grandparents have increased. 

Boomers are making more visits to every segment of the restaurant industry than prior to the recession.

The visit rate for older restaurant consumers is now the same as it is for those younger. Boomers and older have increased their share of restaurant traffic by 6% since 2008, while Millennials have decreased their share of traffic by 6%.

I am one of these older dinners and I can see that more of my age group are eating out. If you go to a market town pub or restaurans in the UK, especially for lunch, you will be hard find anybody under the age of 50.

The hospitality industry hasn't understood this trend. 

When we reviewed Burger King, as part of multi-client study, to understand how age-friendly it was we found that in a couple of parts of the customer journey it was 'just about OK' but when it came to the packaging there was much that they could improve

If I were running a restaurant company I would be checking out the age-friendliness of the customer journey that I was providing to my fastest growing demographic. Dick Stroud

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