Neue Kunden? Neue Märkte? Eine empirisch-wissenschaftliche Studie zu pandemiebedingten Geschäftsmodellinnovationen in der Gastronomie

New customers? New Markets? An Empirical-Scientific Study on Pandemic-Related Business Model Innovations in the Restaurant IndustryTo date, there exist hardly any studies on digital business innovation in the hospitality industry. The study presented here can close this research gap. The hospitality industry is an important place of social interaction and an important employer. However, the pandemic-related lockdowns have led to the closure of the hospitality industry in Germany. Therefore, a written survey of 181 consumers was conducted in November and December 2020 on the one hand, and a written survey of 37 restaurants in Germany was conducted from December 2020 to January 2021 on the other hand. The survey of consumers shows that the closure of restaurants has an impact on their leisure behavior. Take-away and delivery offers, for example, are increasingly being used. For restaurant owners and managers, this offers the opportunity of new customer groups and markets through business model innovation. However, the survey of the restaurant owners and managers shows that only one in 37 offers a format that can be considered „new“ and promising according to Hauschildt and Salomo (2016) due to the lockdowns. This can be linked to evidence from the study of low digitisation in the industry; although this has experienced a boost due to the pandemic, it has been at a low level to date. The result of this is that only 20 % of restaurant owners and managers state that they have opened up new customer groups/markets because of the pandemic. Against this background, the study offers practical advice for restaurateurs in identifying potential digital business model innovation