Dimitrije Acevski, executive chef of the Viceroy Hotel Group, participating in the “Summer 2023” conference panel, said that the offer in the hotel industry must be better than the room itself.
“That offer remains primarily on food and drink. We have to look back at how much the restaurants themselves in the world and in Europe have increased their service and the quality of their service and offer the very concept and attraction beyond the food itself. So with such expectations, our guests come to five-star hotels and go to five-star hotel restaurants,” he said.
When it comes to inflation, he points out that “it had the greatest impact on the operational part of food and beverages, given that the price of basic foodstuffs rose by 30 to 35 percent, and we did not have the possibility to increase the prices of finished products for sale by more than 20 to 25 percent”.
He believes that the consequences of this were felt by consumers. “I believe that, in 80 percent of the facilities, this caused somewhat negative feedback from the guests because they felt a big difference in the increase in prices, especially of drinks, which do not include soft drinks,” he added.
There is a trend of combining vacations with a stay on the mountain. “Everything is changing; the last winter showed that Kopaonik can no longer rely only on the ski season and on that winter time, just as the previous summer on Kopaonik showed that it can definitely rely on the summer season and summer weather. “It is a growing practice that, after the sea or before the sea, people go to the mountain again for several days, so they combine a vacation on the mountain with a vacation at sea,” Acevski said.
The entire conference can be viewed HERE.