Dive Brief:

• Grubhub has partnered with Resorts World Las Vegas, which opened on the Las Vegas Strip on Thursday, to offer access to the resort's 40 food and beverage concepts and select retail shops through the food aggregator's app, according to a press release. This marks the first relationship Grubhub has with a hotel and casino and will replace in-room dining.
• The program, On The Fly at Resorts World powered by Grubhub, allows guests to charge the cost to their room or use a credit card to order from the Grubhub app or by scanning Grubhub QR codes located throughout the property.  Guests can then pick up or have their orders delivered to guest rooms or at the pool. Guests at the pool can pick up their orders through secure, QR-activated restaurant lockers with touchless opening. 
• For Grubhub, this partnership offers a vast captured audience. Resorts World Las Vegas includes three hotels, 3,500 guest rooms and suites. 

Dive Insight:

This partnership further diversifies Grubhub's services and will put the app top of mind for guests who flock to the resort, which is expected to help kickstart Las Vegas's recovery, as the city is still 27% below visitor numbers in April versus pre-pandemic numbers. 

Grubhub continues to expand its services of late. In May, it unveiled Grubhub Direct, a platform independent restaurants can use to create customizable ordering websites, manage customer relationships and access diner data. It also added a product suite called Ultimate that focused on takeout orders and launched a subscription service in 2020.  

"Our goal has always been to make ordering food as easy and convenient as possible for hungry diners, and this mobile ordering experience at Resorts World Las Vegas is our latest proof point of that — effectively enabling diners to order from their favorite resort eateries from the tips of their fingers," Brian Madigan, vice president of campus and corporate partners at Grubhub, said in the press release. 

If this partnership proves successful, it could also provide a model for hotels and resorts moving forward, saving them the necessity of investing heavily in their own restaurant operations to instead rely on marketplaces to fulfill guest demand.

A few similar examples are also emerging. Disneyland Resort just opened a new food delivery option for guests that is free to guests staying at a Disney hotel. Guests scan a QR code on the TV in their room, order food and pick it up from the lobby when it arrives. Other full-service restaurants attached to hotels, including the Dirty Habit Washington, D.C., have provided QR codes to hotel guests to complete orders and grab their food at the restaurant instead of using staff to offer room service. 

Graduate Hotels, which operates about 30 boutique hotels in the U.S. near college campuses, partnered with C3 in June to launch Graduate Food Hall in its properties. These digital food halls will be built in the existing hotel kitchen spaces and offer dine-in options in lobbies and gathering spaces while also providing delivery and takeout to students, guests and the local community.