It’s that time of the year, when folks from Starfleet Media, our IT market research arm (Starfleet Research), and our industry publications make the rounds at the major industry trade shows focused on the hospitality sector. This allows us to stay smart on the latest technology innovation at hotels and restaurants. It’s also a great opportunity to meet a lot of the folks on the solution providers side who we work with regularly, but who we know only by their phone voices, face-to-face. This week, it was the National Restaurant Association show in Chicago. The event had record exhibit space at more than 723,000 square feet (three massive expo halls at McCormick Place). Total registration, including exhibitors, exceeded last year’s total at 65,526. It was a huge show, by any measure, and both extremely informative and a lot of fun. After all, at what other industry trade show can attendees walk around sampling the best food in the world like there’s no tomorrow? Fortunately, with all the walking, we burned at least some of those excess calories. Next month, speaking of food and technology innovation, we will be attending the Plant-Based World Conference & Expo at the Javits Convention Center in New York. Our editors will be covering this inaugural event for Restaurant Technology News. And then it’s on to Minneapolis for HITEC, which ranks as the world’s largest hotel technology show, and which our editors will also be covering for Hotel Technology News.
If you’re a technology solution provider, please let us know if you, or others from your company, will be attending either of these upcoming shows. We would be delighted to schedule a time to meet. Also, contact us if you would like to participate in a Two Minute Chat. There is no cost associated with this opportunity. Here, as an example, is one of many we did this week, and thanks to everyone who participated.
