Why hotel breakfasts suck?

I’ve been recently traveling a lot across the world and one thing that caught my curiosity is “Why do hotels, either good or bad, offer similar breakfasts?”

A few days ago, I met hotel industry experts and had a good time with exciting talks. The answer to my question about breakfast was quite simple. In short, it’s all about optimization.

To appeal to a wider range of guests and save the cost,

First, it should be quick and easy to prepare.

It is more ‘cost-effective’ to allocate experienced personnel to lunch or dinner service and put less experienced staff to breakfast.

This is why continental breakfast is the most popular type of breakfast in hotels. A continental breakfast, generally doesn’t have to be cooked or heated, includes cold dishes such as cereals, fruits, bread, cheese, yogurt, coffee, and tea.

Second, it should be customizable.

Some guests just need some fresh fruits and yogurt while others need a full breakfast. So, most of the hotels offer a buffet, instead of a cooked-to-order breakfast, so guests can select items not needing any help from the employees.

The buffet is usually structured with continental breakfast menus, then some warm dishes like gillied mushrooms and bacon, which are affordable and not difficult to prepare, but still serve the purpose for those who need some energy to kickstart the day.

Third, it should be acceptable (rather than being decent)

I’ve been wondering why there aren’t many hotels that get creative by adding local menus to breakfast. Yes, nowadays there are more and more hotels that try unique menus from the community. However, they are still nothing more than side dishes.

Why? Because the hotels need to serve guests from all around the world. It’s impossible to satisfy everybody because we all have different preferences due to our cultural, religious, and geographical diversity.

So, in order to enhance the overall guest experience, the hotels should prepare dishes that everybody would find ‘okay’, rather than chasing the impossible. Continental breakfast has been the common breakfast style since the beginning of the modern hotel industry. The style has been proven to be okay, or tolerable, across the world.

If everyone is doing the similar, then their pattern must have reasons behind it. It’s not that the hotels are not creative.