Diving letter:
- Grubhub has partnered with Resorts World Las Vegas, which opened on the Las Vegas Strip Thursday, to provide access to the resort’s 40 food and beverage concepts and select retail stores through the food aggregator’s app, according to a press release. This marks the first relationship Grubhub has a hotel and casino and will replace in-room dining.
- The On The Fly at Resorts World powered by Grubhub program allows guests to upload the cost to their room or use a credit card to check through the Grubhub app or by scanning the Grubhub QR codes that are located throughout the property located to order. Guests can then collect their orders or have them delivered to their room or pool. Guests at the pool can collect their orders through secure, QR-activated restaurant lockers with touch-free opening.
- To the Grubhub, this partnership offers a huge audience. Resorts World Las Vegas comprises three hotels, 3,500 guest rooms and suites.
Dive Insight:
This partnership further diversifies Grubhub’s services and will put the app front and center for guests flocking to the resort, which should help fuel the recovery of Las Vegas, as the city is still 27% below visitor numbers as of April on the numbers before the pandemic.
Grubhub has recently been expanding its services. In May, Grubhub Direct was unveiled, a platform that independent restaurants can use to create customizable ordering websites, manage customer relationships, and access restaurant data. It also added a suite of products called Ultimate that focused on takeout orders and launched a subscription service in 2020.
“Our goal has always been to make ordering food as easy and convenient as possible for hungry guests, and this mobile ordering experience at Resorts World Las Vegas is our latest demonstration – it effectively enables our guests to get to their favorite resort restaurants Ordering tact, “Brian Madigan, Vice President of Campus and Corporate Partners at GrubhubAccording to the press release.
If this partnership proves successful, it could also be a model for the future for hotels and resorts, sparing them the need to invest heavily in their own restaurant operations and instead rely on marketplaces to meet customer demand to satisfy.
There are also some similar examples. Disneyland Resort just launched a new guest delivery option that is free for guests of a Disney hotel. Guests scan a QR code on the TV in their room, order food and pick it up in the lobby upon arrival. Other hotel-affiliated full-service restaurants, including Dirty Habit Washington, DC, have provided hotel guests with QR codes to place orders and get their food at the restaurant instead of using staff to do room service.
Graduate Hotels, which operate about 30 boutique hotels near college campuses in the US, partnered with C3 in June to open the Graduate Food Hall on their homes. These digital food halls will be built into the hotel’s existing kitchen spaces and will provide dining options in lobbies and meeting rooms, as well as delivery and pick-up options for students, guests and the local community.
