Tourists and restaurant choice: word of mouth still beats social and review platforms

Nearly four out of ten tourists choose a restaurant online and one in four rely on review platforms such as Google (17%), by far the most used tool, or TripAdvisor (6.7%) and social media (14%). But what drives the choice process remains word of mouth, fuelled by those who have already visited the location or by hotel and B&B staff: just over half of tourists rely on these recommendations, while only 11% decide where to eat when passing by the establishment.

The snapshot is part of a broader survey on the choice habits of consumers visiting Italy, both domestic and foreign, carried out through a survey by the Catering Observatory on the customers of some 2,400 activities operating throughout Italy, which will be presented at the RistoratoreTop Live, an event aimed at operators in the sector to be held in Bologna from 21 to 23 October 2024 to develop common strategies to strengthen the entire sector in an era of great challenges of adaptation.

"If on the one hand tourists love to try new experiences, as demonstrated by the data on the intensity of frequentation, which see 61.6% trying a restaurant for the first time, on the other hand 38.4% have made more than one visit," they state from RistoratoreTop. "The most common mode of enjoyment is as a couple (34.1%), then family (31.9%), groups of friends (28.7%) and work-related meals (3.7%). Only 1.6% sit at the table unaccompanied'.

Among the new trends consolidating in 2024 is the request for a credit card as a guarantee when making a reservation or the payment of a deposit for large groups. This is demanded by 3.8% of the restaurant owners in the sample, and of course the cause is the growing habit of not showing up at the restaurant without warning, the so-called no-show, which can be quantified at around 2% of lost revenue for a restaurant business.

"Knowing customer habits is the first step towards offering customers an increasingly better and demand-driven experience. As obvious as these data may seem," explains Lorenzo Ferrari, CEO of RistoratoreTop, "they give us a scenario in which customers are increasingly accustomed to choosing online and making reservations to secure a place at the table, and a sector that has not yet responded to the growing demand for digitalisation. The latter, especially in the high season, is the way not only to be discovered but also to retain people and keep them coming back. This is crucial when you consider that a huge proportion of visitors are regulars, especially in seaside, mountain and lake resorts'.