Global
Accor Group engaged Think Hospitality to develop a future-facing in-room dining strategy for its luxury portfolio, encompassing Fairmont and Raffles properties globally. The brief called for a comprehensive programme of research, benchmarking and service redesign to reposition in-room dining as a meaningful revenue driver and brand-differentiating guest experience, moving beyond the outdated room-service model that had become an operational afterthought across much of the portfolio.
Working with the corporate F&B leadership team, we designed and executed a multi-phase research programme to build the strategic case and develop actionable guidelines. This began with a bespoke affluent-traveller survey of 250 respondents across Western Europe, the Middle East and North America, exploring guest expectations, ordering behaviours, occasion mapping and willingness to pay. In parallel, we conducted an internal property survey across the portfolio of over 100 hotels, capturing current IRD performance data, operational challenges, staffing models, technology infrastructure and menu structures.
Utilising internal guest feedback and commercial results alongside our own research, we benchmarked against leading competitors and adjacent luxury sectors, identifying gaps in presentation, digital ordering capability, occasion-led menu architecture and in-room amenity integration. The research phase also mapped the key operational pain points—from kitchen workflow and delivery logistics to order-taking technology and tray collection—that were undermining both guest satisfaction and margin.
From this evidence base, we developed comprehensive operational guidelines covering menu frameworks, psychologically-based pricing strategies, guest-occasion modelling, brand-aligned visual standards, technology requirements and service choreography. These were refined through pilot programmes at selected properties before global rollout, with each pilot testing specific hypotheses around menu engineering, digital ordering adoption and revised service standards.
The programme delivered a complete repositioning of the in-room dining proposition across Accor’s luxury portfolio. The guidelines provide a clear, research-grounded framework that leverages behavioural-science principles, advanced menu-design techniques and occasion-led thinking, while honouring the diverse culinary identities across the portfolio. The programme has been implemented globally, supported by detailed operational manuals and an optional transition-support service to assist individual properties with adoption and change management.
“We have partnered with Think Hospitality across multiple strategic projects and their approach remains genuinely unique in our industry. They combine a true understanding of luxury hotel F&B with commercially rigorous thinking, and—critically—they grasp the nuance of gaining buy-in from disparate groups of owners and property-level teams. That blend of insight, creativity and pragmatism is rare, and it’s what keeps us coming back.”Philip Mahoney, Global SVP of Food & Beverage, Fairmont Raffles
