When you travel, there’s a lot you can learn about your own industry – customers, service, menus and marketing. Make sure to keep your camera busy! Even if it’s just to another city, but in this case I went to Italy for a month – travelling in the area around Rome and to the south in the 'boot', then another week in the north visiting the big cities of Genoa and Milano. 

I’ve recorded my observations here, particularly food, service and restaurant operations – I was also interested to see how well I could operate my own business, Profitable Hospitality, from on the road. It’s fairly different to your venue, in that I’m not serving guests with food and drinks. But operating remotely with the aid of modern digital tools went very well, and I’ve explained how in the last section of the podcast. I’d love to hear your observations about travelling in Italy – the food, the service and ‘the business’. Click on the Comments link and add your thoughts... 

I’ve put a wide selection of photos from the trip into several albums on Flickr – you can see them here