Share
We held a networking event at Edinburgh venue, Brewhemia, bringing together over 60 operators and suppliers from across the hospitality industry together.
Chris Wayne-Wills
Our Scotland Chair opened our networking event, providing those in the room with an update of UKHospitality Scotland’s ongoing work.
“UKHospitality Scotland are continuing to campaign hard, heightening awareness that the Scottish Hospitality Industry is “Serving Scotland” and our economic contribution, the impact of the jobs we create, and our overall social importance has to be recognised."
During his speech he spoke about the Scottish Government’s failure to offer any meaningful support to businesses in its Budget, alongside a lack of action in Westminster, which means that the financial investment needed to deliver growth in the hospitality industry is at risk.
Increases to the National Minimum Wage and National Living Wage will see Scottish hospitality’s wage bill increase by £254m this month. As a sector reliant on its workforce, employment costs make up over half of our operating costs.
Paul Smith
Managing Director of Castle Leisure Group talked about Brewhemia’s journey to make it the exciting venue it is today.
Brewhemia is on the doorstep of Waverly train station in Edinburgh which sees 20 million people travel through a year. Brewhemia has the biggest tank installation in the world with 12 tanks and serves 3,000 covers of food a week.
Paul went on to describe the challenges they faced after the pandemic.
“It’s a very sad day when the cost of doing business causes well run, good businesses to close.”
Glenn Tait
🏴 What an incredibly insightful evening at @UKHofficial‘s Scottish networking event.
“We’re not replacing hospitality, people come to venues to be served. We want to help servers and operators become more efficient by utilising data.”
Glenn Tait, Product Director#ZonalUK #UKH pic.twitter.com/FRTkNFAqYj— Zonal UK (@ZonalUK) April 19, 2024
From event partners Zonal, spoke about using technology to enhance hospitality operations and run businesses more efficiently.
They are all about data driving efficiencies that are not noticeable to guests but are to operators.
“We’re not replacing hospitality, people come to venues to be served. We want to help servers and operators become more efficient by utilising data.”
Glenn spoke about technological advances we can expect to see coming down the line:
AI answering machines
Digital waste tracking
Digital menus that provide personal suggestions
