With 18 million people in the United States alone on some type of weight-loss medication or plan, and more expected now that these medications are available in a pill form, hotels and meeting planners will need to rethink menus to reduce sugar to enable meeting attendees and hotel guests to be able maintain their regimen. Learn more in this issue of Connecting the Dost with ALHI President and CEO Michael Dominguez.
Michael Dominguez: Hi, thank you for joining us for this edition of Connecting the Dots. I wanted to talk about something that we've been talking about a lot at our meetings, and it is both preparing the hotels and the meeting professional for an onslaught of something that's coming, and this has to do with dietary changes around weight-loss drugs.
What we're seeing right now is there's almost 18 million people in the United States alone that are on some type of weight-loss medication and/or regimen, and we're expecting that to explode now that those medicines are available in a pill form. The reason this matters is they're diabetic drugs and what this does to dietary needs and what this does to peoples’ not only preferences, but absolute needs to maintain their diet and/or maintain their regimen is really a reduction in sugar. And I think about this because I joke that you describe every coffee break that we've put out traditionally as an industry and that is what is no longer going to be allowed on these types of diets.
As they become more prevalent, it's going to become a bigger need. Hotels need to be prepared for it. Planners need to be prepared for it. We're in a high protein diet environment. How are we starting to work that into our menus?
Also understanding that the portion sizes actually matter with weight-loss drugs and regimens. Eating less food, how do we start to take that into consideration, which should help with food waste down the road. A lot of benefits coming out of it. It's just going to be a large wave of requests that are going to be coming and we're not quite prepared for it as an industry.
This isn't at all criticism. It's trying to look at connecting the dots of things that are going to really be impacting our industry down the road. I think you're going to find it to be as common as gluten allergies and other issues that are actually requested around diets and menus, and it's incumbent upon us as an industry to really put this into play.
I've talked in the past. about the push around non-alcoholic beverages and mocktails, and the explosion around that, around health and wellness. Well, the one thing to think about, many of those mocktails are sugar-laden, and if they're sugar-heavy, they're not going to fit into the diet category that's necessary for these people on these types of drugs.
All of that is now in play. All of that requires us to really think carefully and thoughtfully to be able to execute effectively for this type of audience. We've been in an industry that talks about being inclusive of peoples’ lifestyles in our meetings and making sure that we're executing against that. Well, we can't ignore the fact that if we're going to be inclusive, that we're going to have to look at dietary restrictions and dietary needs that are becoming more prevalent in our society.
It's an exciting time. I don't see this as a major negative. I see it as an opportunity for us to reinvent and for us to really at least be very thoughtful at having larger selections when it comes to specifically coffee breaks and our menu design around banquet events and what we're doing into the future.