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6.30.25
The global restaurant, hotel, and hospitality industry is on track to hit historic highs in 2025. Restaurant sales will near $2.6 trillion, global hotel revenues will reach $955 billion, and U.S. food service revenues alone have surpassed $1.1 trillion. These numbers mark a strong rebound from the pandemic’s lows—but behind the recovery is a rapidly transforming landscape driven by new consumer behaviors, rising wages, and disruptive technologies. Here are the most important trends defining this dynamic sector.
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1. Labor Shortages Fuel Automation and AI Integration
Labor scarcity is a mounting challenge. In the U.S., hospitality wages are climbing, California’s 2024 fast-food law mandates a minimum $20 per hour for large chains. Hotels and restaurants, long reliant on large low-wage workforces, now face both political and demographic pressure to increase pay. The response? Automation. Restaurants are introducing robotics like “Flippy” for burger flipping and AI-enhanced kiosks for customer orders. McDonald’s and Wendy’s are investing in smaller, drive-thru-only formats featuring self-service kiosks and mobile ordering lockers. Yum! Brands, parent company of Taco Bell and KFC, is deploying AI voice-ordering at 500 U.S. locations in 2025, a shift expected to improve speed, reduce labor needs, and boost average order value. Hotels, too, are adopting AI-driven concierges and IoT-enabled rooms that automate climate, lighting and entertainment preferences.
2. Rise of Ghost Kitchens and Delivery-Only Models
Consumers’ pandemic-era digital habits have become permanent. Delivery apps like DoorDash and Uber Eats still claim 15–30% of every restaurant check. This has given rise to ghost kitchens which are delivery-only cooking facilities with no customer seating, signage, or service staff. Platforms like CloudKitchens, Wonder and Grubhub are enabling operators to launch multiple virtual brands from a single kitchen, maximizing output while minimizing overhead. These models are ideal for densely populated areas and cater to the growing demand for convenience.
3. Experience-Driven Travel and Dining
Today’s travelers, especially Millennials and Gen Z, seek authenticity, wellness and sustainability over luxury. This generational shift has birthed a new “experiential economy” where locally sourced food, craft breweries, volunteer tourism and eco-certified lodges win out over cookie-cutter experiences. Hotels are adapting with wellness offerings like Hilton’s Five Feet to Fitness rooms and menus featuring regional cuisine. Social-media-ready aesthetics, immersive excursions, and cause-based itineraries (such as tree planting or teaching abroad) are becoming standard in high-end travel.
4. Sharing Economy Challenges Traditional Lodging
Airbnb now lists 7.7 million active properties across over 100,000 cities. This massive supply has changed how people think about lodging, blurring the lines between commercial hospitality and residential rental. To compete, hotel chains are launching branded home-rental services (e.g., Marriott’s Homes & Villas) and embracing micro-rooms, extended-stay suites, and hostel-inspired “poshtels” to appeal to younger, value-conscious travelers. Hotels are also adopting hybrid models where apartments or condos near hotel properties are integrated into reservation systems and offer access to full-service hotel amenities.
5. Online Travel Agencies vs. Hotel Brands: The Loyalty Battle
Online travel agencies (OTAs) such as Expedia and Booking.com dominate the online booking space, charging hotels commissions up to 25%. In response, hotel chains are fighting back by offering exclusive perks like mobile check-in, digital room keys, loyalty points, and room selection features only to direct-booking guests. Mobile-first marketing, app-based personalization and social media promotions are essential tools in this war for customer loyalty.
6. The Cruise Industry’s Dual Expansion
Cruising is growing at both extremes: mega-ships and micro-expeditions. Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas can carry over 7,000 guests and includes theme park-like amenities, while luxury cruise lines such as Seabourn and Uniworld are investing in smaller vessels with 100–500 passengers focused on intimacy and adventure. The river cruise segment is especially strong, offering boutique experiences and higher fares per guest with significantly lower capital investment. Companies like Viking and AmaWaterways are thriving in this niche.
7. Booming Food Truck and Craft Brewery Movements
Urban areas continue to embrace food trucks and craft breweries as symbols of local flavor and innovation. Food trucks, often operated by women, immigrants or minority entrepreneurs, are affordable to start and flexible to operate. Cities like Denver and Philadelphia offer some of the best regulatory environments for mobile kitchens. Craft beer, with nearly 10,000 breweries across the U.S., offers opportunities for restaurants and brewpubs to differentiate through unique food and beverage pairings.
8. Eco-Tourism, Pet-Friendly Perks and Personalized Experiences
Sustainability is now a core value proposition. Green-certified hotels and cruise ships with biofuel initiatives, advanced wastewater systems and local sourcing practices are becoming mainstream. Certification programs like Green Globe and EarthCheck lend credibility to these claims. At the same time, hotels are tapping into lifestyle trends such as pet ownership. Dog-friendly rooms, on-site pet menus and perks like massage services for dogs are now surprisingly common, particularly among Millennials and Boomers who prefer traveling with pets.
The future of the hospitality industry is being defined by converging pressures: rising wages, changing consumer values and rapid tech adoption. Automation and artificial intelligence will drive cost-efficiency and personalization. Meanwhile, the real differentiators will be experience, sustainability, and emotional resonance.
Key Concepts: Restaurant, business, cruises, economics, hotel, entrepreneurship, finance, future, globalization, fast food, food service, catering, innovation, investing, marketing, consumer goods, technology, hospitality, artificial intelligence (AI)
Source: Plunkett Research, Ltd., Copyright © 2025