Foresite of Restaurant Business Development

Topicality. Domestic economic environment has been in a state of turbulence since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, additionally reinforced by the risks of a full-scale war escalation. The uncertainty of the crisis timeframe, as well as significant threats of physical destruction and financial losses cause the necessity of searching reference points for adaptation and revitalization of activities. The sphere of service activity, in particular the restaurant business, turned out to be the most vulnerable to the external influence of political and legal, social and cultural, technological tendencies, as well as fluctuations in economic conditions. The significance of this study is argued by the latter’s contribution to overcoming the shock of the Russian military invasion, which became decisive and drew attention to its social and economic role not only as an organizer of catering and leisure for the population, but also as a guarantee of food security. Therefore, the development of the restaurant business is an important aspect of supporting the country’s economy both in war and post-war realities. The prospects of startups should be supported by thorough calculation regarding the high level of its investment attractiveness. Therefore, the relevance of this research lies in the elaboration of oriented principles and prospects for the restaurant business development, which is based on scientific assessments, in particular thanks to foresight.

The aim of the article. The aim of this study is to conduct a foresight research of the restaurant business in Ukraine, and to substantiate the oriented principles for development, taking into account market trends and tendencies. The specified topic determined the use of general scientific methods, which contributed to the elaborating key definitions and forming operational research tools.

Research methods. The horizon scanning method was used to evaluate the restaurant business development scenarios; it revealed the main tendencies and trends of the restaurant services market and deterministic consumers’ needs. The modelling method helped to determine how communications could be formed in the process of implementation of foresight sessions for the restaurant business development. To assess the prospects for the development of the restaurant business, aspects of the pre-crisis (pre-quarantine and pre-war) as well as expectations (customers’, investors’ and subjects’ of the restaurant business) of the post-war periods were compared.

Results. The key term “foresight” and its main predictors were defined. The components of the complex monitoring and prognostication mechanism were worked out: political, economic, technological and market foresight. An overview of the most important tendencies and trends in the national and global business environment was presented in order to identify and detail the problems and challenges facing restaurant establishments in future. Prospects for further research base on the elaboration of alternative scenarios for the restaurant business development through the foresight methodology.

Conclusions and discussion. Restaurant business foresight studies use sophisticated methods, still, they rarely involve all stakeholders, including consumers. The authors pay special attention to the monitoring of political, economic, technological and market environment, as well as to digital technologies, which are already significantly changing approaches to business development. The analysis of Ukrainian subjects of the restaurant business makes it possible to evaluate strategic maps as a foresight tool, which is complemented by active prognostic methods. Based on the peculiarities of the restaurant business and market tendencies, four scenarios are defined: crisis experience (“freezing and adaptation”); anti-crisis benchmarking (“global expectations”); breakthrough innovations (“motivational attack”); resuscitation scenarios (“struggle and recovery”). All these scenarios describe oriented principles for the development of the restaurant business. They are practical for scientists and practitioners, as they provide a basis for elaborating and evaluating development strategies for both individual business entities and the restaurant industry in total.