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Accommodation and Food Industry Resources

Accommodation & Food Services – Sector Overview
This part gives you a quick overview of this industry sector, the number of businesses that comprise the sector broken down into large and small businesses along with a discussion about some issues and challenges facing the businesses.

Accommodation & Food Services - List of Businesses
This section provides our readers with a listing of the businesses that are categorized under this industry classification.

Accommodation & Food Services - Resource Directory
A great tool put together painstakingly by our staff that identifies the major associations and organizations that serve the various businesses in this industry classification.  Besides the name and website, you will also find a brief description about the organization.  Our small business owners always thank us for putting this tool together – we are confident that you will find it useful as well. 

ACCOMMODATION & FOOD SERVICES - SECTOR OVERVIEW

The first step in determining how to write a business plan at Trident Consultants involves identifying the correct business sector to which our client’s business belongs.  The accommodations and food services sector is a vast industry classification as per the NAICS – North American Industry Classification System.  It covers businesses like hotels, motels, bed and breakfasts, rooming houses, full service restaurants, fast food franchises, cafeterias, snack bars, mobile food services, drinking places, caterers and many others.  (A detailed listing of accommodation and food service businesses has been included at the end of this page.)

There are over a 1 million larger businesses (with employees) in this industry sector that employ over 11 million people with a total payroll of $156 billion.  On average the larger accommodation and food service firms have at least 10 employees and the average income nationally for each of these employees is about $14k.

In the small business world covering firms with no employees, there are 279k such food and accommodations service firms with total gross receipts of $23 billion and the average annual income as reported by each firm of around $54k.

Any business plan about the accommodations and food industry would be incomplete without mentioning how dependent this sector is on the general health of the economy.  Hotels and motels draw their business from business and vacation travelers and there is direct relationship between economic health and business and personal travel.  In slow economic times the hospitality industry is one the first to feel the pinch.  The business planning process should account for this by adjusting the revenues forecasts accordingly.

Both accommodations and food services businesses are also very dependent on the availability of cheap labor.  This is often very challenging and it can result in many firms hiring undocumented workers when they need to fill jobs.  With recent enforcements of our nation’s immigration laws it is becoming increasingly harder to find good labor and that has resulted in the costs of labor moving up thus reducing the profitability of the such businesses.  A sound business plan must assume for this when calculating the break even cost structure for a business involved in accommodations or food services.

Food franchises tend to be very affected by the costs of raw materials and ingredients and the business plan must take into account the increasing costs of the supplies as well as the cost of gasoline that in turn is used by the transportation industry to get these raw materials to the business.  A business plan that does not have room for an increase in raw material prices that can be passed along to the consumer could negatively affect the business when it actually does face these challenges.

Specialty grocery stores have to know how to distinguish themselves from the larger supermarket chains to survive and hence their business planning must include a strategy to carry a unique product mix that is not available at the large chains.  Gourmet foods like special cheeses, smoked bacon and roasted peppers allows them to set themselves aside from the larger shops.  On the other hand the larger supermarkets have also begun to offer organic and gourmet foods to compete with the smaller names. 

Since the food business is a high volume low margin business, it is critical that a keen analysis be done of the demographics in the target market of the firm.  Business planning must break down the subtle changes in demographics and the spending and consumption patterns if they are available for the market place.

Lunch time is the busiest time for non-traditional restaurants and a good business plan must account for higher use of labor during those hours and lower labor usage during off peak hours.  By the same token a food business must try and diversify into non-lunch sales business by trying to cater to working adults and senior citizens.  Some fast food locations have extended their hours to be able to capture a better market share of the late dinner business.  Ice cream stores should consider opening late during the summer hours since they tend to make most of their annual income during the summer months.  A sound business plan should address all these elements.

If you are starting a business offering accommodations and food services, or are already established but are looking to grow, secure a partner, venture capital or business loans, we would be happy to help. 

ACCOMMODATION & FOOD SERVICES - LIST OF BUSINESSES

The following is a list of the various businesses that fall under this industry sector:

Accommodation
Traveler Accommodation
Hotels (except Casino Hotels) and Motels
Casino Hotels
Other Traveler Accommodation
Bed-and-Breakfast Inns
All Other Traveler Accommodation
RV (Recreational Vehicle) Parks and Recreational Camps
RV (Recreational Vehicle) Parks and Recreational Camps
RV (Recreational Vehicle) Parks and Campgrounds
Recreational and Vacation Camps (except Campgrounds)
Rooming and Boarding Houses

Food Services and Drinking Places
Full-Service Restaurants
Limited-Service Eating Places
Limited-Service Restaurants
Cafeterias
Snack and Nonalcoholic Beverage Bars
Special Food Services
Food Service Contractors
Caterers
Mobile Food Services
Drinking Places (Alcoholic Beverages)