THIS IS THE END

This is our last post. 

We hope you like it and that you learn things with the Blog. 

Doing this Blog we learn different things about gastronomy, and also different strategies that nowadays restaurants are taking into account to survive. 

We have to say that it was a good experience and a different way of learining. 

Goodbye! :D

Núria and Idoya

SPANISH GASTRONOMY ABROAD

There are Spanish Chefs that decided to go abroad to teach and to show the gastronomy that we have here in Spain. One of these Chefs ir José Andrés. 

José Andrés is a Spanish Chef that decided to leave Spain and start their new experiences in United States.

He was doing his learning period in El Bulli , and Ferrán Adrià was his teacher. 

Nowadays he is leaving in Washington, a place where with 21 years old went to finish his studies and work in some restaurants. 

When he was leaving here in Spain, he presented a TV program called " Vamos a cocinar con José Andrés". 

Now in United States he is the manager of different Restaurants, and have opened restaurants in Las Vegas, Los Angeles, 

What he does now in United Stated is promoting the Spanish gastronomy. He wrote different CookBooks explaining different receipes of Spain and the different regions. 

He has a program called " Made in Spain" where he shows in the TV different ways of cooking Spanish food, like for example Tapas, a very famous dish. He does the program in English and he also edited CookBooks with the same name explaining the receipes. 

In the programs, videos are quite short, he wants to show people the most important steps and above all the final result.

In some episodes of his program, he take advantage of the different regions of Spain and show the most important dishes, and not only cooking them, but also recording videos of the regions and showing the different places and the restaurants that you can visit there. 

We think that José Andrés is a Chef that is working very well, and with his work he is promoting Spain and people can know more about the gastronomy and the culture just seeing short videos. This is a different srategy to inform about other places or new oportunities, but is good because foreign people can be attracted and will decide to came here and spend some days enjoying the culture and also the food. 

So, what we want to do explaining you a little bit about this Chef, is that apart of he, there are many other people, that are also promoting Spain going abroad and writting books, or doing programs. 

Do you think that this is a good strategy to promote a country or a region?

COULINARY TOURISM

It is a different way of tourism very famous nowadays. There are many regions in all Spain that their way of live is basically the tourism, but some of them are famous for their restaurants.

The World Food Travel Association, define Culinary Tourism or Food Tourism as: " The pursuit and enjoyment of unique and memorable food and drink experiences , both far and near " 

In many places they organize culinary tours to show the gastronomy and the typical dishes.

Some towns and villages offer apart of the gastronomic tours the culture, and also the monuments of the village. 

Many customers think that culinary tourism is a different way of know different places, and enjoy the food, an important thing nowadays.

There are restaurants that offer degustations of the main interesting and famous dishes, you can also try different wines, and sometimes they organize sessions where they show you different ways of preparing a dish. 

This kind of tourism is very famous in rural places, like little villages in the mountain, because they want to promote their products and also attract people. For that reason, many Hotels near this places, decided to make advertisements offering accommodation and exclusive tours round restaurants, bars... just to introduce their different services and products. 

Doing this things, many villages started to earn money and to be known in different places, and the number of visitors have increased a lot. 

Coulinary Tourism has advantages for all this villages, towns and cities. Some of the advantages or benefits are:

• More visitors arrivals
• More sales (rooms, ariplanes seats, restaurants meals...) This not only involves restaurants, but also Hotels because people have to accommodate in somewhere, planes, or any other kind of transport. 
• More media coverage
• More tax revenue: the fact that more tourists arrive to a place, this mean that they will pay taxes and the revenue of the village will increase. 
• More people will known the place

But Coulinary Tourism, is not only going to Restaurants and Bars, but also going to the different street markets that you can find in every city. By going to the street markets you will know better the kind of food that they eat, and also the culture, because you will have the opportunity to see people from many places. 

In our oppinion, we think that this is a good way of travelling and of tourism, because it's different and at the same time you can also know the culture and the most important palces of a city or village. 

The Srategy that involves this Coulnary Tourism be think that is Cost advantage and Differentiation. 

Cost Advantage because the prices are a little bit more expensive that going only to visit a place, but the service that they offer you is better and different, for that reason they have to have their products well organized and think different ways of introduce their products and their services to attract people and be successful. 

Do you think that here in Catalonia Coulinary Tourism is important? Or  maybe we have to promote more our tipical dishes? 

SUBWAY,  EAT FRESH AND HEALTHY

Nowadays, SUBWAY is the biggest supplier of sandwiches of the world. It has more than 38000 locals around 100 countries. It takes up an important place in the industry of "fast-food". 

The whole SUBWAY restaurants have the same objective: offer a quality product elaborated according to the taste of the customer. 
The sandwiches and salads are made in the presence of the client and they can choose the complements as free, such as crisps vegetables, cheese, sauces, condiments... 

SUBWAY restaurants offer a big variety of sandwiches: cold and warm sandwiches prepared with the daily elaborated bread and they included options with low fat and salads. 






In the lasts years had had a big potential of growing in the spanish market.

SUBWAY provide continuing formation and doesn't need the experience of the sector.










 

All the SUBWAYs are franchises. A franchise is a right granted to an individual or group to market a company's goods or services within a certain territory or location. SUBWAY franchisers have a lot of help, for instace: informatic help, because of the good development of the establishment. 

They are located in no traditionals places, such as in airports, supermarkets, petrol station, leisure centres, cinemas, hospitals and shopping centres. This type of location is becoming more famous.


What do you think about franchises? Have you ever been in a SUBWAY restaurant?

PEST ANALYSIS

This is a very useful technic that is use to analyze different factors of the environment that can affect companies. 

In this post, we are going to analyize the sector of Restaurants, and see what factor can affect positively or negatively the company. 

• POLITICAL FACTORS: for Restaurants the most important factors are the health regulations. If the regulations of health regulation change, Restaurants have to change the way of working, sometimes wasting a lot of money to adapt to the new regulations. They are also afected by the increment of taxes and fees. 
• ECONOMIC FACTORS: inflation and the cost of capital are some of the factors that affect Restaurants. If people don't have enough money to go to a Restaurant, this sector will be afected negatively because their clients will decrease, and at the same time their revenue. 
• SOCIAL FACTORS: the decisions of Restaurants when offering their food is very important to the society. Most of the people want to go to a healthy place where they can eat different and unique dishes. But each country has different characteristics. There are societies where people prefer to stay at home in order to go out. For that reason, people who are thinking about opening a Restaurant, have to think and study the social factors to be successful. 
• TECHNOLOGICAL FACTORS: the technology that Restaurant uses are very varied. They have to have good machines to prepare the food, and sometimes they spend a lot of money to purchase this machines or facilities.  It isa sector, where the adaptation is very important. They have to adapt to the changes in technology, because if you don't do that, your business will be oldfashioned and people will start to look for substitutes, and this is something that business have to avoid. In that case, competitors are important, because if one direct competitor have good machines or facilities, you will have to think about it, and maybe it's time to change the appearance of your local, to atract more clients. 

Doing this analyises, and studying  the points, companies will have a better business, and they can change things to have better results, attract more clients and be well positioned in the market. 

Do you think that companies have to make this kind of analysis?

5 FORCES OF PORTER

It is true that making the general 5 forces analysis of the Fast Food Restaurants, without focusing in an specific one, can be a little bit difficult, but we try to do it, a simple and short analysis to observe the most important things to take into account, thinking about the most important factors, and focusing in the Fast food restaurants like McDonalds, KFC and Burger King.

- Threat of New Entrants: nowadays this threat is very high, because there are many restaurants like that, and companies are opening new ones so, we have to say that although you need a great amount of money to invest and to create a restaurant, in these fast food sector entrants are quite high.

- Threat of substitute's products: as we said before, there are new concepts of fast food, maybe a healthy one and this could be a direct substitute. Also the prices, if people see that in other restaurant the prices are lower and the quality and the products are almost the same, surely that they are going to prefer the cheapest one. But it is also true, that there are many people especially young people that like very much one of this restaurants and it could be difficult to change their opinion of going to another one.

- Bargaining power of consumers: normally these kinds of restaurants are focused on young people, that don't want to spend a lot of money. Prices are affordable for anyone who wants to eat something fast. In special occasions there are limited edition products with a special price, where consumers can choose, and restaurants take advantage to increase their sales. 

- Bargaining power of suppliers: suppliers are very important in all the restaurants in general. We think that even in Fast food restaurants suppliers are very important, because they have to provide to the restaurant's the products and the different things that they are going to use to prepare the meals.

- Competitive Rivalry: there are many fast food restaurants, and they are creating new ones. So, the rivalry can be very high because chains like McDonalds, Burger king and so one, almost offer the same products (burgers, chips, sodas...) They say that the difference is in the quality, and also in the price, so people can choose between different restaurants and this can be a high competition. 

FOOD &FUN

BHARMA: is a restaurant located in Barcelona. If you are a fanatic of TV series Lost you have to visit it. It's a bar inspirated of this TV serie. The decoration is the more important in this bar, there are: the "Temple Door", the "Hatchway with the damned numbers", the end part of the "plane 815 Oceanic". The beers and beverages are the brand and the logo of "Bharma". And the sandwiches and tapas have the name of characters or titles of chapters. 

DISASTER CAFE: is a restaurant located in Lloret de Mar. It's a thematic restaurant where while you are eating suddenly the light are closed and started to sound some sounds and the floor start to shake; and you also. It seems a eartquake and you don't know when will happen. 

ICEBARCELONA: is a bar located in Barcelona. As you can observe by the name is a ice bar. Al the room is of ice: the walls, the furnitures, the sculptures. The beverages are served at 5º C subzero temperature. The bar gives you an artic coat and golves. There is a exterior terrace also.

DANS LE NOIR: it's in Barcelona. It's a restaurant where you are going to eat without lights and you will eat and discover the taste without seeing. It's a way to check your other senses. 

HARD ROCK CAFE: it's a coffe bar chain in different countries of the world. The decoration is with cultured rock objects such as famous groups guitars and the food served is typical northamerican. There are also videos of rock music groups playing all the time. 

FOSTER'S HOLLYWOOD: a restaurant chain of american food. All the decoration of these restaurants are from american films, the whole environment is inspirated in Hollywood: it's a casual restaurant.

LA POSADA MALDITA: is a thematic terror restaurant located in Barcelona and Cerdanyola del Vallès. The food served is home-cooked food, which is different is the way to served it: with shocks, screams and also laughs. The decoration , as you can imagine, is all about terror. 

-The strategy that has done these different restaurants is the differentiation. They use thematics environments and create the restaurant to be different to the normal restaurants and be original to attract more people. 

Nowadays could be a good strategy to be different and try to surprise the customers. We think that there aren't enough restaurants like these and for them are good because it's a high entry barrier for a new restaurant that would enter. 

- Have you ever been in some of this restaurant? Explain us your experience. Do you think that is a good differentiation strategy?

SWOT ANALYSIS

In this post we are going to talk about the general SWOT strategy that could be useful in almost all the restaurants. 

STRENGHTS * Unique recipes * A good staff, specially the chef * A good location * Affordable prices * Good quality * Update decoration and accommodation of the local. *A well structured menu * Make discounts and offers

WEAKNESSES * Not enough money to start the business * Being situated in an unknown area * Being new in the market * Not make enough promotion * Do not obtain all the licenses to open de business * Not qualified staff

OPPORTUNITIES * To have the opportunity of opening another restaurant or bar * Organize weddings or any other event if the restaurant is big. This will help to increase the revenue and the restaurant will be more versatile. * Create different atmospheres inside the local, like for example a Kids area, or a Music Pub at night. * Prepare take awake menus if it is possible * Use the holiday dates to create new menus, and promotions to offer to your customers.

THREATS * Competitors near your restaurant offering almost the same services. For example if your restaurant offers Pizzas, if there is another restaurant near you that also offers Pizza, t would be a direct competitor * New Chains like McDonald's or others that have lower prices. * Some works in the street. It would make that people refuse to passing through these street * Have some problems with the staff, and they decided to do strike. * If suppliers do not deliver the products on time, because of the traffic, strikes… * Increase in the price of the raw materials

So, although this is a general Swot analysis for any kind of Restaurant, we think that is a good strategy to take into account if you are thinking about opening a new restaurant. And as you can see, it is very important to analyse all the different factors, because a bad decision could be very negative to the business. 

Do you think that making a SWOT analysis of your business is a good idea to be succesful in the market?