Magazine: Brave new world

A survey conducted in the USA found that 90 percent of 18-29 year olds sleep with their mobiles next to the bed and the average person uses their mobile for 1.8 hours a day, but they only spend 1.5 hours with their PC. Estimation is that while travelling, in more than 30 percent of cases people use their mobiles to find bars or restaurants and in 21 percent to connect to social media.

People are happy to use PCs or mobile phones to find a place to eat, to order food or to get discounts. A growing number of systems help restaurants in offering guests the opportunity to book a table or pre-order meals. These days the majority of online food orders are placed from mobile devices. Food order website Foodpanda launched its mobile app in 2013 and its popularity has been growing ever since. The PubHunter app contains the addresses, prices, services and promotions of more than 1,500 bars in Hungary. There are relatively few restaurant apps in Hungary because of development costs. It is cheaper to optimise their websites for smartphone. Modern restaurant systems give great help in serving customers better. The next big step in the digitalisation process is the integration of different system related to the Horeca segment. Imagine a world where there are no bills or cash use or paper-based orders! Digitalisation also influences the purchasing side: there will be no paperwork, supplier tricks and pricing differences. Horeca software would place orders automatically and the supplier would refill stocks, sending invoices online. Szabolcs Botond, the founder of rendeljvelunk.hu told our magazine that they are working on developing such a system element. The company helps restaurants and hotels’ daily purchases with their food and drink order system. Products with the best price-value ratio or the cheapest products can be found and ordered in an instant using the system. All in all, we can say that the hospitality sector can’t escape starting to use digital systems, be it restaurant software, ingredient purchasing or trip advisor management.