The catering business involves the provision of food at social gatherings. If properly utilized, catering businesses can generate a considerable amount of revenue. Three central business enterprises include catering principles within their business models. These include; hotel banquet and event operations, mobile dining operations, and offsite catering companies. Each of these businesses varies in a number of aspects. This paper aims to elaborate on the differences between the three business models by assessing the typical customers, venues, price points, and service levels of each catering operation.
Hotel banquets and operations involve a written contract that enlists every significant detail about a particular function. It serves people with events that require meticulous planning. A written agreement is relevant to the typical clients of hotel banquets and operations because it ensures that operations will be handled professionally (Boella, 2017. Hotel banquet operations often serve clients in corporate occasions, weddings, and high-end social events.
Hotel banquets are rooms reserved in hotels to accommodate many people for particular functions. The venue is designed accordingly to fit the specific type of flair desired for every event. Hotels that serve banquet operations often expect it to generate considerable revenue. Therefore, hotel banquet operations are usually reserved for people that can afford to incur substantial expenses. The business model of hotel banquet operations offers superior quality services to clients (Boella, 2017). Consumers are granted the opportunity to design an event as they please hence their use of themes.
Mobile dining operations are effective when eluding extra expenses like renting out a space. The mobility of food trucks enables entrepreneurs to move to different places, which helps to increase consumer outreach. The typical consumers of businesses that offer mobile dining operations are middle-class individuals aged 25 to 44 (SBDCNet, 2020). Mobile dining operations, such as food trucks, target places with a high market concentration.
The most prevalent venues where food truck owners target customers are; near busy gas stations, outside nightclubs and bars, on-the-street parking areas, and in business districts. Food trucks offer foods that are relatively affordable to many consumers. Due to the low-price points in mobile dining operations, profit generation requires truck drivers to sell food to as many people as possible (SBDCNet, 2020). The mobile dining operations business model offers a basic level of service to its consumers.
Offsite catering companies prepare food in a kitchen somewhere and deliver it to the location of a particular event. Businesses that offer offsite catering services serve clients at corporate functions, bar mitzvahs, graduation parties, birthday parties, and wedding ceremonies. Offsite catering does not have a specific type of venue, as it shows up at the client’s desired location. However, most offsite catering services are held in open spaces that accommodate a large population of people.
The price points for offsite catering services depend on the list of requirements requested by a client and the particular type of event in context. For instance, the price per person in a corporate event is highly likely to be higher than the price per person at a graduation party. Offsite catering companies offer distinct service levels to consumers based on the brand image a company desires to portray. Most offsite companies offer exemplary services to clients to create a good reputation and increase the number of repeat customers.
References
Boella, M. J. (2017). Human resource management in the hotel and catering industry. Routledge.
SBDCNet. (2020). Food Truck Business – SBDCNet. SBDCNet. Web.