Sniper Tourists’ Paid $115,900 to Shoot at Civilians, Says Investigation
‘Sniper Tourists’ Paid $115,900 to Shoot at Civilians, Says Investigation
Tatiana Popova / Shutterstock
https://www.fodors.com/news/news/sniper-tourists-paid-115-900-to-shoot-at-civilians
Italians are investigating the alleged shootings.
Italy is investigating claims that “sniper tourists” traveled from the country to Bosnia-Herzegovina in the early 1990s to shoot civilians for sport. These war tourists allegedly paid the equivalent of $115,900 today to shoot at civilians in the city of Sarajevo, which was under siege by Bosnian Serbs.
Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina made up the former Yugoslavia, a communist state. In the early 1990s, as communism collapsed, different regions declared independence. This led to an outbreak of war as Serbs began a campaign to ethnically cleanse Bosnian Muslims, known as Bosniaks. From 1992 to 1995, Bosnian Serbs surrounded Sarajevo, and more than 11,000 people died during the four-year siege, the longest in modern European history. Snipers attacked the city, targeting supermarkets, hospitals, and residential areas at random. Civilians feared the brutality, and even children were shot.
Reports now allege that wealthy Italians paid large sums to kill unsuspecting civilians from the hills surrounding the city. It’s alleged that rates for shooting men, women, the elderly, and children varied.
In 2022, a documentary called Sarajevo Safari by Miran Zupanic exposed how wealthy foreigners came for “human safaris.” Not just Italians but Americans and Russians were also involved.
One prominent figure filmed using a machine gun to fire multiple rounds into the city was Russian poet and politician Eduard Limonov. Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic personally gave him a tour of their hillside positions. Karadzic was convicted of genocide and sentenced to 40 years in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal in the Netherlands. Limonov was never prosecuted for these crimes and died in 2020.
Milan-based writer Ezio Gavazzeni heard about sniper tourists decades ago, but the documentary led him to investigate further. He submitted his findings—a 17-page file—to prosecutors in Italy, which resulted in the current investigation. His report includes a statement from former Sarajevo mayor Benjamina Karic. Prosecutors in Milan are now working to identify those who may have been involved.
Gavazzeni told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, “[There was] a price tag for these killings; children cost more, then men, preferably in uniform and armed, women, and finally old people, who could be killed for free.”
Gavazzeni alleged that citizens of Italy, Germany, France, and the U.K. would travel to the northeastern Italian city of Trieste, then on to Belgrade. There, Bosnian Serb soldiers would take them to the hills for money. “There were no political or religious motivations. They were rich people who went there for fun and personal satisfaction. We are talking about people who love guns who perhaps go to shooting ranges or on safari in Africa.”
A Bosnian intelligence officer confirmed that his colleagues learned about these sniper tourists and informed Italy’s military intelligence in 1994. After some months, the trips stopped. Former U.S. Marine John Jordan also told the International Criminal Tribunal in 2007 about these tourist shooters. However, members of the British forces told the BBC that it would have been logistically difficult to bring in people to shoot at civilians. They served in Sarajevo in the 1990s and never heard of it.
Western Tourists Are Ruining an Ancient Japanese Tradition — All Because They Miss the Buffet
Ekaterina McClaud/Shutterstock
https://www.fodors.com/world/asia/japan/experiences/news/western-tourists-are-ruining-an-ancient-japanese-tradition-all-because-they-miss-the-buffet
The accommodation style is thought to date back to the 8th century CE.
Ryokan are traditional Japanese inns that offer an only-in-Japan experience sought after by many visitors. Presenting omotenashi—hospitality for over a thousand years, the accommodation style is thought to date back to the 8th century CE. The experience is highly choreographed, and like most things in Japan, there’s a time-honored set of rules to follow, like wearing the provided yukata robe, showing up on time for meals, which are ordered in advance (and generally included in the room rate) and cooked to be perfect at the time stated.
Ryokan have traditionally offered a kaiseki set menu made from seasonal ingredients, alongside a traditional Japanese breakfast with a focus on local specialties. It’s considered essential to dine-in when staying at a ryokan, as the cuisine is considered integral to the experience, but it’s also a part of the rhythm and business model of this ancient form of hospitality.
A recent article published in several Australian newspapers suggests that Western tourists are driving changes to Japan’s ryokan—namely, that they’re requesting Western-style meals instead of Japanese ones. Perhaps they prefer not to enjoy delicacies such as the Tochigi speciality Shimotsukare, made from finely grated rainbow trout, vegetables, and soy beans simmered in miso served at KAI Kinugawa, or the thick slice of soft-grilled Japanese yam served for breakfast at KAI Sengokuhara. Many ryokan have given in to the demand, including several properties operated by Hoshino Resorts, whose KAI line of ryokan can be found throughout Japan. Some, including KAI Yufuin in Oita, offer guests a choice of Western or Japanese breakfasts when booking their stay.
Japan Today notes that it may seem odd that Western tourists are preferring to skip ryokan meals when Japanese food is more popular outside Japan than ever before, but also notes that popular Japanese foods like sushi and sashimi rarely figure into the ryokan experience. They also note that many ryokan in Kyoto, popular with Western tourists, have modified their breakfasts, making them buffet-style with dishes that have wider international appeal, diluting the ryokan experience.
Other complaints include western guests attempting to cancel meal packages mid-stay (at which point the ryokan would already have purchased the food) or requesting partial refunds for disappointment in the meal offerings. Sora News notes this is particularly notable in Kyoto, where Japanese travelers (who are familiar with the ryokan experience and know what type of meals to expect) have increasingly avoided the city as it becomes increasingly popular with foreign tourists.
One blogger who queried several ryokan in Kyoto found that they had differing ways of handling the issue. One ryokan stopped offering meals entirely, while another began restricting foreign visitors to room-only packages after too many instances of returned or cancelled food or disputed charges.
While it’s typical in consumer-oriented hospitality contexts that hoteliers will provide what their guests request, it’s almost anathema for such a structured property type like a ryokan—sought after because they’re emblematic of Japanese culture—to compromise the very traditions that theoretically make them appealing to foreign visitors to begin with. It’s also worth noting that many ryokan are small, with only a handful of rooms looked after by a small, multi-tasking staff, and they don’t have the ability to provide the massive amount of culinary choice a larger hotel would.
Travelers can be good guests in ryokans by researching their stay in advance and choosing experiences that best fit their needs instead of asking for refunds after the fact. Better yet, take the plunge and try the Japanese cuisine offered for dinner and breakfast in the ryokan. Many ryokan take special pride in their cooking, and have for generations. It might be just as easy as skipping eggs for breakfast or two while traveling abroad to help Japan protect the traditions around one of its oldest hospitality styles.
The outlook for real estate and infrastructure in a changing world
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/real-estate/our-insights/the-outlook-for-real-estate-and-infrastructure-in-a-changing-world?
Adrian Kwok is an associate partner in McKinsey’s New York office. Eric Quiñones is a senior editor of McKinsey Global Publishing and is based in the New Jersey office.
Demand for more global infrastructure investment creates opportunities for real estate players. McKinsey’s Adrian Kwok explores how the two industries can work together in a more dynamic environment.
The global infrastructure landscape is evolving and in need of massive investment. A McKinsey report projects that $106 trillion in infrastructure investment will be required through 2040 to meet demand for new and updated assets and services that support long-term economic growth, societal well-being, and modern industries. What role do real estate organizations play in this environment? In a conversation with McKinsey Global Publishing’s Eric Quiñones, McKinsey Associate Partner Adrian Kwok explains how the real estate and infrastructure industries intersect, how they can collaborate, and how they can innovate with AI. An edited version of their conversation follows.
Eric Quiñones: Why is it important for real estate developers, operators, and investors to understand the insights from McKinsey’s infrastructure report?
Adrian Kwok: The line between real estate and infrastructure is increasingly blurred. Take some of the asset classes we examine in the report, such as warehousing for logistics, data centers and digital infrastructure, hospitals, and affordable housing. They have always been classified as real estate because they are structures with people and physical assets in them, but they are increasingly considered infrastructure as well, given their role in forming the backbone of modern society.
Many of the macro trends we discuss in the report have implications for both sectors. Global population growth and rapid urbanization are driving the need for massive investments in new infrastructure and real estate development—and in modernizing or repurposing aging assets. Aging populations are increasing the demand for senior housing. Global decarbonization targets and greater demand for renewable-energy sources are equally on the minds of real estate and infrastructure professionals.
One of the major themes of the report is the growing intersection between infrastructure verticals like transportation, energy, and digital. That’s also happening in real estate, where there is more interplay between different real estate asset classes—for instance, how the shift to hybrid work creates an opportunity to convert underutilized commercial office space into residential units.
In turn, there are more opportunities for infrastructure and real estate organizations to work together in a more expansive ecosystem. You can’t do city planning without considering the right balance of commercial real estate versus residential real estate, the right transportation to get people to and from work, and the right amount of green space to make the environment nice to live in. You can’t have a data center without enough access to power and water to cool it. You can’t build a residential community without reliable access to power, waste disposal, and clean water. You can’t build commercial developments in remote areas without access to reliable internet connections.
Eric Quiñones: The report emphasizes that the traditional definition of infrastructure—roads, bridges, and ports—is expanding to incorporate new elements such as data centers and fiber-optic networks. Is the real estate sector evolving in similar ways?
Adrian Kwok: Yes. Real estate is seeing growth in technology and services that maximize the value of the assets themselves. For instance, how do you make buildings more efficient from the standpoint of cooling, lighting, or security access? The increased focus on technology and services applies in both the real estate world and the infrastructure world. Companies that previously invested only in hard physical assets, like a data center, are now looking at ways to get into maintenance or other services or to invest in power assets that are required to run those centers.
Eric Quiñones: What steps should real estate organizations take to adjust to this more dynamic environment?
Adrian Kwok: Historically, the real estate sector has been seen as slower to evolve relative to other sectors in the economy. But it seems now that the pace of change is accelerating. For instance, the move to hybrid work has created significant shifts in demand for commercial versus residential real estate in city centers. Another example is how the rise of AI is accelerating demand to repurpose properties such as older federal government sites to turn them into data centers.
Within commercial real estate, as many employers try to get people back into the office, they realize that workers have much higher expectations for their work environment. So we’re seeing more companies wanting to trade up to higher-quality offices, which means upgrading older, lower-quality spaces or developing new properties.
As new opportunities develop across the real estate and infrastructure sectors, organizations will need to be more creative in terms of funding sources throughout the ecosystem. They will also need to move quickly to embrace the latest technologies to build faster and more efficiently.
Eric Quiñones: How will technology, specifically AI, help real estate organizations meet the demands they are facing?
Adrian Kwok: I would say there’s almost no limit to AI’s impact on infrastructure and real estate—and there is a lot of innovation happening in both spaces.
AI can play important roles throughout the entire life cycle of an infrastructure asset or a real estate asset. Even before you put a single shovel in the ground on a new power plant, housing complex, or data center, AI can crunch tons of data and run scenarios to improve capital planning. It can make scheduling for major capital projects more efficient, which can help offset some impacts of labor shortages that are causing delays and increasing costs in infrastructure and real estate development.
In terms of services, AI can help with functions like operating energy-efficient lighting, booking space in office buildings, providing more secure building access, and improving tenant experience overall by being more responsive to feedback and needs. And AI tools for predictive maintenance can enable a bridge or a building to operate much longer before it needs a major repair.
This is still relatively new technology, and a lot of applications are still in experimental phases with organizations at the forefront. AI use should pick up quickly across the full real estate sector.
Eric Quiñones: Are there other areas where real estate and infrastructure organizations will find more opportunities for collaboration?
Adrian Kwok: The report projects the need for $16 trillion of global investment in social infrastructure, which includes hospitals, affordable housing, educational facilities, and civic buildings. These types of assets bridge the real estate and infrastructure industries. Demand is growing because of growth in the global population and aging populations in the United States and Europe. New development is needed in many parts of the world, and many existing assets are aging and in need of improvement.
Eric Quiñones: What role will the private sector play in meeting this demand?
Adrian Kwok: The role of private capital in infrastructure is one of the big themes of the report. The value of dedicated infrastructure assets held by private-capital firms has tripled since 2016. One of the reasons is that we’re increasingly operating in a dynamic world where private investors can sometimes respond faster, creating opportunities for private–public partnerships to fill gaps in infrastructure needs or for private investors to fund projects themselves. In the social sector, an example would be public university systems collaborating with private investment funds to build student housing.
In general, if you’re a government that recognizes a need for additional infrastructure or different types of real estate in your geography, you have more options now to unlock that investment beyond adding it into your annual budget. You can go after partnerships with the private sector. You can use tax incentives, which we’re seeing a lot now as more governments recognize the importance of bringing in data center development. Private capital will continue to be an increasingly important source of funding for both real estate and infrastructure investment.
How many new memories did we create?’ Rethinking restaurant success
https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/how-many-new-memories-did-we-create-rethinking-restaurant-success?
Chip Wade is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group, and John Ragan is its president of full-service restaurants. Ben Mathews is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Ohio office.
Union Square Hospitality Group CEO Chip Wade and president of full-service restaurants John Ragan explain why, in the future, chefs in its dining rooms are an asset and robots in its kitchens are not.
At The View, one of Union Square Hospitality Group’s (USHG) newest restaurants, New York City unfurls in a single, 90-minute revolution. The 360-degree rotating restaurant in the sky, which first opened in 1985 but closed during the pandemic before USHG took over, is a concept befitting USHG.
Unlike many restaurant groups that concentrate exclusively on one category, USHG operates across the sector. Its portfolio includes Michelin-starred restaurants such as Gramercy Tavern and The Modern, a chain of all-day cafés called Daily Provisions, a growing consulting business, and an investment arm, Enlightened Hospitality Investments. Founded in 1985 by restaurateur Danny Meyer, the New York–based company employs roughly 1,900 people. That breadth gives USHG a panoramic perspective on how customer preferences and restaurant operating models are evolving.
In August, McKinsey Senior Partner Ben Mathews sat down at The View with Chip Wade, the group’s chief executive officer, and John Ragan, president of full-service restaurants, for a wide-ranging conversation on what it means to put employees first, how technology and data are reshaping the guest experience, and what the future of dining might look like.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Ben Mathews: We’re here at The View, New York’s only rotating restaurant. It’s one of the newest and biggest restaurants in the Union Square Hospitality Group portfolio. It’s also a beautiful space. Why did The View make sense for USHG? Is it a harbinger of what USHG might do in the future?
Chip Wade: When we were thinking about this design, we really wanted to make sure we had a design that was indicative of the community of New York and really was a place both tourists and New Yorkers would fall in love with. Ultimately, in the decision process, we evaluate whether we feel now is the right place and time to bring a certain concept to market before getting to work.
Putting employees first
Ben Mathews: USHG has a unique management philosophy called “enlightened hospitality,” which also serves as the name of the company’s investment arm. Rather than the usual restaurant adage of “the customer is always right,” you put employees first, followed by guests, community, suppliers, and then investors. How does that philosophy show up in practice?
Chip Wade: Enlightened hospitality is really the foundational pillar of USHG. It is not a typical pyramid. It is a virtuous cycle where all five of those stakeholder groups can win. The pandemic was the best example of this philosophy in practice. New York was hit tremendously hard during the COVID-19 pandemic. We made the decision to close our restaurants before the city mandated it, and it was largely because we wanted to make sure that our employees’ well-being and safety came first.
At the time, we had an organization that was approximately 2,400 employees, chefs, leaders, and servers. We had to lay off 95 percent of our workforce. But because we follow enlightened hospitality, we found a way to be a great “unemployer” and stay engaged with the employees, help them find other jobs in the communities, knowing that we would come back. And when we came back, we called our employees—and a majority of them returned.
Ben Mathews: That’s impressive. How did your investors react?
Chip Wade: We’re privately held, and we have a fantastic board. They were very supportive of the steps we took. We often talk about “tomorrow dollars” at USHG, which is really a second philosophy around taking a long-term view on the workplace, about business, about new restaurant growth. When you start with the framework of tomorrow dollars, then it’s easy to make decisions.
Leadership that is compassionate and flexible
Ben Mathews: That’s certainly an example of values in action. But is there an example of when those values slipped? And how did that failure shape your leadership style?
Chip Wade: Much earlier in my career, I was a general manager of a restaurant in Boston. We were having a very difficult shift, and a server approached me and wanted me to talk to a guest. It was clear to me that the guests were not having a great experience. I took some of my frustration and anger out on the guests, and as I came back down to have a conversation with the server, my immaturity and my frustrations came out. I’m not proud of this, but I berated this young leader, giving feedback in a very stern voice, and he began to cry.
For me, that was a profound moment because a leader’s role is never to inflict pain. For the next week I went about publicly apologizing, whether that employee was there or not, to the rest of the staff. What I learned from that is the power of connecting with our employees at all levels, the power of my voice or a leader’s voice, and the importance of not inflicting pain on the individual.
Later in my career, I ran development for a casual-dining chain. I was strong willed and determined to put a restaurant in Fenton, Missouri. I convinced the president and the board to do that—and it was a complete and utter disaster. That taught me the power of making sure you know the communities where you aspire to put a restaurant. When you put a brick-and-mortar restaurant in a town or in a city, it will only be successful if you’ve made meaningful strides into building networks and communities.
John Ragan: When you open a restaurant, you might work on it for three, four, or five years before you unlock the doors for the first time. In our industry, you have to stay flexible because the minute you open those doors to the world, that’s not your restaurant anymore. It’s their restaurant.
Technology as the great enabler
Ben Mathews: What’s your vision for the future of restaurants and the future of the guest experience?
Chip Wade: Thinking about restaurants of the future begins with the consumers. What’s happening with the younger demographic? What do they need, want, and expect from a fine-dining, full-service restaurant or from a fast-casual restaurant? Often, when we’re in a conversation with Danny [Meyer, USHG founder], John, and a developer, and we’re talking about a new project, one of Danny’s favorite questions is, “What does this community need? Does it need a great Italian spot—and, more specifically, is it a Roman trattoria or is it Tuscany inspired?” From there, we start to ideate.
We know that the use of technology is going to continue to accelerate. It will become one of the great “solves” for both the employees as well as the guests. We think about technology as being an enabler to remove pain points from their dining experience.
Daily Provisions is a great example of a restaurant of the future. It was curated by Danny [Meyer] in 2017 as an all-day neighborhood kitchen. We learned a lot from the first one. Then COVID came, and one of the things we saw was a significant increase in revenue via third parties. People were ordering on their app, and delivery became a sizable revenue stream for that brand. So we had to update our packaging and menu offerings, and we had to make sure our employees understood that speed was paramount.
Ben Mathews: Bringing new technology into a restaurant to accelerate speed of service is tempting for any restaurant operator, but how do you do so while also maintaining the customer experience?
Chip Wade: It is possible for us to infuse hospitality while simultaneously inserting technology that makes it easier for both the guest and the employees. The guests are still going to interface with the maître d’; they’re still going to have a great conversation with the bartender. But technology should enable the bartender to do their job faster.
John Ragan: When we can use technology, we can multiply hospitality. I’ll give you an example: I had dinner six months ago, and I really loved the bottle of wine I had, but I can’t remember exactly what it was. But thanks to reservation platforms that allow us to keep guest preference notes, we can remember; we’re also using digital dining platforms, which eliminate the need for check drops and table-side payments, to deliver even better hospitality.
Chip Wade: Like most organizations, we’re taking an aggressive approach to AI to improve productivity. You’ll never see robots in the kitchen of USHG; but if we can use AI and technology to better forecast inventory needs, run quality assurance checks, and conduct supply chain market analyses, we can procure better and improve our supply chain management. Then we can spend more time in the dining rooms. And that, for us, is where the wins happen.
Ben Mathews: How might technology change how USHG employees spend time in the kitchen? Will it allow a chef to come out to the dining room and engage with diners more often and for longer?
John Ragan: Years ago, a chef would just be head down in the kitchen, but in so many of the restaurants that we love today, you know the chef. They’re part of the brand, shaking hands and kissing babies and going to events.
All of these things are very important for the visibility of a restaurant. But there’s a time crunch because if they’re doing that, they can’t spend 60 hours a week in the kitchen. So we leverage inventory and ordering platforms that allow chefs to complete ordering with a lot less friction. These platforms allow chefs to see real-time product usage and auto-generate reorders when stock is low. That way, our chefs can just approve the order rather than having to put their hands on every single item every day. A lot of these technologies are cutting edge but will become more common in time, helping our chefs not only be great leaders but also be great ambassadors of the business.
Chip Wade: I’ve been at this for about 40 years. When I was writing schedules for hourly employees, it was literally pen and paper, then that morphed into Excel spreadsheets. Today, we’re able to gather data on sales trends for food or wine that are happening in real time. We can also tell what events or holidays are coming up in the city, and we get all that information to our chefs faster today. That allows them to write a schedule using data in real time. It’s not only the production of a schedule for the hourly employees, but it’s also a well-informed schedule to make sure we have the right employees at the right stations at the right time when the business requires it.
Soft skills: Front-of-house must-haves
Ben Mathews: As for the front of the house, I imagine there are new skills and capabilities that will be required in the future. How do you expect those roles to change?
John Ragan: In the coming years, you’ll see restaurants continue to get smaller from a footprint standpoint. Very rarely do you see large grand restaurants anymore, at least not in the heart of New York. When you think about restaurants that have a smaller footprint, I think in the front of the house you’ll see leaders who are generalists. They’re able to do most aspects of the leadership of the restaurant, whether it be directing the staff, working on the reservations, and everything in between. I think the days of saying, “I am a very specialized leader” are probably behind us.
Chip Wade: When we think about our front-of-house teams, and much of this applies to our culinarians as well, we often approach this from a perspective of what we often call “51 percent and 49 percent.” We want all our employees to score a “100” on their test. For us, we describe the 49 percent as the technical skill sets to be very proficient in your job. That includes how you greet a guest, how fast you can deliver a beverage, the way you bring the food and the entrees from the left versus the right. The 51 percent is about emotional intelligence. We’re constantly looking for employees who have a high degree of curiosity. They show a high degree of empathy. In the front of the house, those skills—those behaviors—are even more important.
A lot of restaurants often ask the question, “How’d you do in sales last night?” or “How many covers1 did you do last night?” That’s important to us as well, but we also think about, “How many new memories did we create?”
On the tech wish list: Frictionless payments and deeper consumer insights
Ben Mathews: What tech would you like to see come to the restaurant industry?
John Ragan: When we think about the restaurant experience, people have less time now. The idea of having a two-hour dinner is a stretch most nights of the week. We want to make sure people can have a great experience at the table but not be tethered to the table. We talk a lot about the notion of “get up and go,” for example. When I’m done eating, is there technology that can take care of the check for me so I don’t need to wait 15 minutes to sign a piece of paper?
Chip Wade: One that we’re working on is accelerating the guest payment process so that the guest can experience their payment process very similarly to what they experience in an Uber: When my ride ends, I say goodbye to the driver, and I get out. If we can achieve that in the restaurant, it’s also better for the restaurant because we’re able to turn tables faster.
We’re constantly looking at technologies that will enable us to communicate with our workforce faster and more efficiently. If there is an emergency, for example, and John wants to send a message to his chefs and general managers, email is probably not the most efficient way to get in touch with them, since they may not always have access to their email. Right now, we use the same platform to message our team members that they use to clock in and out.
Software that will enable us to capture consumers’ preferences will be key. I like bourbon, I’m allergic to eggplant, and I don’t like raw walnuts. If the server has all that information as she’s approaching the table, then you remove a lot of awkwardness and dialogue. She can say, “Mr. Wade, I understand you love bourbon. We have a great drink that our beverage director just created.” She can get right into the business of making the guest feel valued and special.
John Ragan: That server could also say, “And this pasta dish is excellent. You’ll notice that the menu says it has walnuts, but we’d be happy to make it for you without walnuts.”
Moonshots on the menu
Ben Mathews: I was in Southern California with my family and passed one of these robots that was clearly delivering a pizza or a sandwich to someone. Ten years ago, that would have been considered a moonshot in the restaurant industry. What’s your moonshot idea for the future of the restaurant industry?
Chip Wade: Young adults want more experiences. The question becomes: How can I have not just an eating experience but a full dining experience? In the future, the restaurant could move beyond a four-wall brick-and-mortar location. You could have a dining experience on a private yacht, or a dining experience that moves with you on vacation. Imagine taking [Gramercy Tavern executive chef] Mike Anthony with you and your family on vacation, and he becomes your private chef as you move through villas of Tuscany. I don’t know if that’s going to happen specifically, but I can see a future where the dining experience meets travel in new ways. In short: How can I bring my favorite restaurant with me on vacation?
John Ragan: You’re already seeing green shoots of that. When you go to a baseball game now, you can get great food. It used to be that you had to eat what was on offer. There are all kinds of examples of that because of the demand of the guest.
Chip Wade: While we can’t predict what’s going to happen in ten or 15 years or where consumers are going to dine, we can predict pretty confidently that a gathering place, where a community feels valued and cared for, will trump everything else that’s happening in the future.
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