Optimizing In-Room Dining & To-Go Options

Bringing Convenience and Elevated Offerings to Hotel and Resort Guests

As the winter season kicked into high gear, The Lodge at Spruce Peak in Stowe, VT, rolled out GoTab’s contactless ordering and payment solution, bringing a fully integrated best-of-breed restaurant commerce platform to complement the resort’s existing tech stack. As the team prepared to welcome countless ski and snow enthusiasts for the winter season and its high-volume holiday weekends, they quickly implemented GoTab at three of its seven dining destinations, leveraging the platform’s online ordering and takeout capabilities to facilitate in-room dining and Spruce Peak to-go offerings.

Convenience Spurs Growing Guest Adoption Rate & Higher Spend

With the implementation of GoTab, guests are empowered to order and pay for in-room dining from Tipsy Trout & Mansfield Sushi and Alpine Hall directly on their mobile device. Through GoTab’s easy online ordering features, the food & beverage staff can easily access the backend, update any and all menus in real time, and 86 items as soon as ingredients and dishes become unavailable. With guests in charge of their own orders, Director of Food & Beverage Ian Pomerville has noticed that the adoption rate keeps growing, repeat orders keep increasing and tech-savvy guests cannot get enough of the convenience of GoTab’s online ordering features. At The Pantry and Beanery, the average spend keeps going up, particularly for families who were introduced to the convenience of GoTab through a quick coffee and now order full meals/breakfasts for their entire group. This is prompting the team to envision an upcoming launch of in-room grocery delivery (and pick-up) next, further utilizing GoTab’s ever-expanding e-commerce capabilities to generate yet another revenue stream. 

Enhanced Guest Communications

One of GoTab’s most distinctive features is two-way text communications, which is used by the restaurants’ back-of-house staff and in-room dining staff at The Lodge at Spruce Peak. Staffers enjoy having the possibility to communicate directly with guests via text messages, going back and forth with customers about food order changes, out-of-stock menu items, or special instructions. This tool allows the team to rectify any order mistakes or handle guest challenges in a timely manner, saving precious time in the kitchen. It also allows the in-room dining team to make progress on multiple orders all the while handling possible guest issues, questions or complaints via text messages. Since the hotel team skews younger and more international (sometimes with limited English skills), two-way text communications is the perfect tool for them to effectively and seamlessly communicate with guests. “For our international staff whose first language isn’t English, GoTab minimizes any potential comprehension issues and really makes communicating with guests much easier,” said Pomerville.

Easier Training, Lower Labor Cost

With more than 250 employees across seven dining destinations, The Lodge at Spruce Peak relies on seasonal employees, hospitality experts and international students to serve guests on-site and for in-room dining. While adopting a new food technology solution can sometimes be daunting, GoTab’s easy-to-use platform required minimal training for all employees, and adoption was seamless thanks to the platform’s intuitive interface and user-friendly features. As the labor market remained tight, GoTab helped The Lodge at Spruce Peak operate in-room dining with a third of the staff it typically requires. On peak weekends, two staffers typically manage in-room dining orders, collecting and organizing orders and delivering meals to resort guests, compared to six employees in the past.

As the team starts the transition from winter to summer, Pomerville plans to take the convenience level of GoTab to new heights. He is planning to roll out GoTab’s contactless ordering and payment features at the pool bar, where guests will be able to order drinks from and to their deck chair, and food from a food truck on-site, as well as at The Green, the open-air pavilion where the resort hosts a popular concert series. He also has plans to launch a family program with full meals to be delivered to guestrooms, picnic tables and other hotspots throughout the village. “The opportunities to upgrade the guest experience with GoTab are endless,” he added.

"The backend is well thought-out, intuitive and easy to use. Our Chefs and managers love to use the GoTab KDS because it allows them to cross-check all the orders coming through our POS and through GoTab in one place. They can catch any discrepancies or duplicates and manage everything from there."

– Ian Pomerville, Food & Beverage Director