The days of traditional chalk boards and printed posters at restaurants and cafes may soon become a remnant of the past as the hospitality industry shifts towards digital signage to show their customers new offers, nutritional information, and Covid-19 check-in options.
Highlighting nutritional information
Chalk boards and printed posters have limited space on which cafes and restaurants can add important information about the food and beverages they offer. As regulations come in force around the world ordering that establishments show nutritional information alongside menu items to help combat the global obesity problem, digital signs offer a simple and effective way for the hospitality industry to meet these new regulations without sacrificing important sign real-estate that they would previously have used to highlight new offers.
Digital signs display useful information like nutritional information clearly and precisely, and can be updated with information about new products much more easily than redesigning a poster and sending it to the printers.
Easier and cheaper to update
For fast food and other establishments that change their menu items regularly with new offers and bundles, printing new posters for every change is an expensive task, with a designer and print firm required to update any information. Digital signs, however, can be updated by the management by simply editing a few small snippets of information and uploading some new imagery. No need for external partners to make the edits and no need to wait days or weeks for the printers to deliver the updated materials. Digital signage companies have made making such changes simpler, easier, and cheaper.
Keeping up-to-date with Covid rule changes
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced many hospitality businesses to drastically change how they operate, from reducing numbers and moving to table service, to QR-code check-ins and monitoring for Test & Trace. As the pandemic evolved over the last year it has been difficult for the sector to keep pace with the week-by-week changes to restrictions, especially if they needed to print this new information on posters every time.
Digital signs have made it possible for restaurants, cafes, and pubs to stay on top of the changes, such as explaining to patrons that they need to scan QR codes before sitting down and any other unexpected changes to service without the need for front-of-house staff members to repeat the same message to every customer hundreds of times per day.
Is digital signage the future?
Digital signage has demonstrated its value to the hospitality industry over the last two years, and it is unlikely that after the initial outlay expense these companies will ever go back to traditional printed posters or hand-written chalkboards for their displays in the future. Digital signs are becoming the norm and their adoption is only going to gain momentum across the industry in the coming years.
Photograph by Happy Meal