Food Hotel Tech 2026: when innovation puts people back at the center of the guest experience
During the opening keynote of Food Hotel Tech 2026, Christophe Gaschin, CEO of the Bertrand Group, delivered a very clear vision of the future of the restaurant and hotel industry: the transformation of the sector will not only come from restaurateurs, hoteliers or solution providers. It will come first and foremost from the customers.
More demanding, more mobile, more connected, and sometimes more volatile too, consumers are profoundly transforming the codes of hospitality. They want to move quickly, but without sacrificing quality. They want fluidity, but also smiles. They want innovation, but not a cold or dehumanized experience. In short, they want everything. And this is precisely where technology becomes strategic.
Catering that is no longer limited to “eating”
Christophe Gaschin forcefully reminded us: today, we no longer only go to restaurants to eat. We go there to live an experience.
The atmosphere, the concept, the speed of the service, the simplicity of payment, the quality of the welcome, the coherence of the digital journey: everything counts. The experience begins long before you arrive on site, as soon as you search for Google, look at reviews, book online or interact with a loyalty app.
In this new context, the traditional boundaries between fast food, sit-down dining, fast casual or street food are blurring. Customers everywhere expect the same thing: a smooth, fast, enjoyable, and memorable experience.
Technology at the service of the workforce
The central message of this keynote is unambiguous: technology is only valuable if it simplifies the lives of teams and improves the customer experience.
Automating a reservation, making payment at the table more fluid, optimizing orders, avoiding forgetting in a bag at the drive-through, better managing schedules or reducing waste: so many uses that do not replace humans, but allow them to focus on the essentials.
Because in the hotel and restaurant industries, what builds loyalty remains profoundly human: a smile, attention, the right service, a presence at the right time.
The tech then becomes invisible to the customer, but essential behind the scenes. It is what allows the course to seem simple, natural, almost obvious. And that’s often where the best technologies are recognized: when you don’t see them.
Innovation as a permanent reflex
With fast-changing consumers, businesses need to stay on the move. Christophe Gaschin insisted on the need to innovate constantly: in products, in concepts, in tools, but also in the internal organization.
In particular, Groupe Bertrand has set up a Food Lab to follow trends, nurture product creation, support marketing and digital teams, and imagine the customer journeys of tomorrow.
The objective is clear: to better understand expectations, anticipate desires, create living spaces and offer experiences capable of making people want to come back.
Data, AI and personalization: better knowledge to better serve
Data and artificial intelligence are central to this transformation. Not to dehumanize the relationship, but to get to know customers better, personalize the experience and optimize operations.
AI can help design a new concept, improve inventory management, limit waste, adjust orders, or respond more effectively to customer requests. But it still has to answer a simple question: does it make the experience smoother, more useful, more enjoyable?
If the answer is no, then it’s probably just technology for technology’s sake. And in this case, failure is never far away.
Hospitality increased, but still human
This opening keynote laid down a strong common thread for Food Hotel Tech 2026: the future of the hotel and restaurant industry will be neither 100% robotic, nor nostalgic for the past. It will be hybrid, agile and deeply customer-oriented.
The establishments that will succeed will be those that know how to use technology wisely: to ease constraints, strengthen teams, make it more fluid and create more time for human relations.
Because in the end, the issue is not to choose between technology and hospitality. The challenge is to make technology make hospitality even better.
And this is perhaps the great promise of Food Hotel Tech: to show that innovation is not there to replace humans, but to give them back their rightful place.