Why 81% of hotel guests never use room service — and what's quietly replacing it
New hospitality research found 81% of hotel guests never use room service, and two-thirds of millennials would be more likely to book a hotel that accepts third-party food delivery. Here's what's actually happening to in-room dining, and how forward-thinking hotels are turning Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats into a guest amenity instead of a threat.
Three numbers are quietly reshaping hotel F&B strategy in 2026. 81% of hotel guests say they would never use room service. 80% expect a hotel restaurant on site — but only 72% use it, and mostly for breakfast. And two-thirds of millennials say they would be more likely to book a hotel that lets them order in from third-party food delivery platforms like Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats.
Put together, these signals tell a coherent story: traditional in-room dining is dying, while in-room takeaway delivery is rising fast. Hotels that adapt the operating model — rather than resist it — turn the shift into a guest-experience upgrade and a new ancillary revenue line. Hotels that don't, alienate the next generation of guests.
Why room service is in long-term decline
Room service was designed for a different era — captive guests, limited dining options, formal service expectations and price-insensitive corporate travel. Modern guests choose hotels in cities where world-class food is 10 minutes and one tap away on a phone they already use every day.
The three structural reasons guests stop using room service:
- Pricing — a £24 club sandwich versus a £12 Deliveroo equivalent feels indefensible
- Choice — a single in-house menu cannot compete with thousands of local restaurants
- Speed — kitchen-to-room timing rarely matches the 25–40 minute delivery promise of third-party platforms
Why on-site restaurants increasingly serve breakfast only
80% of guests expect a hotel restaurant. 72% use one. The gap is almost entirely dinner — guests want to go out for the evening meal, eat in the local neighbourhood and explore. Lunch is hybrid (some in, mostly out). Breakfast is the only meal a hotel restaurant reliably owns.
Smart hoteliers are responding by re-scaling F&B around that reality: a strong breakfast offer, a flexible all-day bar/lounge, and a frictionless delivered-in option for in-room dining. The kitchen does what it's best at; everything else is platform-supplied.
The new 67% — millennials and delivery
EP Business in Hospitality research found that 67% of millennials would be more likely to book a hotel that openly accepts Deliveroo, Just Eat and Uber Eats. Gen Z's number is even higher. For these guests, the ability to order in is a booking-decision feature, not a fallback.
Hotels that quietly tolerate delivery — but don't operationalise it — leave the experience to chance. Couriers buzzing reception, bags left on the lobby counter, guests getting cold food two floors away from where they paid for the room. That experience colours the entire stay.
What forward-thinking hotels are doing instead
The emerging best-practice operating model has four parts:
- An explicit policy that welcomes third-party food delivery — published in pre-arrival comms and on the in-room QR card
- A secure 24/7 handoff layer in or near reception, so couriers don't roam corridors and bags don't accumulate at the front desk
- A wine-and-beverage upsell aligned to the delivery moment — boutique hotels report meaningful add-on revenue here
- Optional local-restaurant partnerships, where the hotel curates a short-list of high-quality nearby kitchens for guests
Foodie Locker is built for that handoff layer — a temperature-controlled smart locker that sits in or near reception, accepts hot, ambient and chilled deliveries, and releases them to the guest with a PIN or QR code. No reception bottleneck, no roaming couriers, no cold food. See the full operating model in <a href="/blog/hotel-fb-without-the-kitchen-hybrid-model" className="text-primary underline underline-offset-2">Hotel F&B without the kitchen</a> and <a href="/blog/replacing-room-service-third-party-delivery" className="text-primary underline underline-offset-2">Replacing room service</a>.
What it means for hotel F&B P&L
Resisting delivery doesn't bring guests back to room service — it just makes the F&B experience worse. Embracing delivery opens three commercial moves: a smaller, sharper kitchen footprint (lower CapEx, lower labour), a higher-margin beverage attach rate on delivered-in orders, and stronger booking conversion among the demographics now driving demand. The math, for most hotels, is one-directional.