Marriott warns: in Asia Pacific, the restaurant no longer rules

Marriott International has unveiled its Future of Food 2027 report, a document analysing dining trends across Asia Pacific excluding China based on conversations with chefs, hospitality experts and regional influencers. The central takeaway, as Hospitality Net reports, is what they call the rise of place: diners no longer look for a restaurant, they look for an experience tied to the destination.

Formats are becoming fluid, more social, less bound to the traditional dining room. And hyperlocal stops being a brochure adjective to become a purchasing criterion. For a hotel this changes the equation: F&B no longer competes with the restaurant around the corner, it competes with the entire city. Marriott plays with an advantage because it has properties in every corner of the region, but anyone without that scale needs something else: real locally sourced product, stories that only exist in their neighbourhood, and teams that know the producer by name.

My read: the report doesn't discover America, but it does put a date on the shift. And it warns anyone still designing menus from head office. Either you anchor yourself to the place, or you stay out of the traveller's story.