Why Great Hospitality Creates Great Places

For decades, hospitality was viewed as something that sat within a destination. A hotel anchored a development. A restaurant activated a street. A café served the people who happened to be there.

Today, that thinking has fundamentally changed. Food and beverage has become a strategic tool for shaping how places perform, how communities connect and how destinations are remembered. From mixed-use developments and retail districts to airports, hotels and regeneration projects, hospitality increasingly influences where people choose to spend their time and why they return.

The evidence is clear. Food and beverage can now account for up to 30% of leasable space within many mixed-use developments, while 80% of travellers research food and drink experiences before they arrive, demonstrating the growing role hospitality plays in shaping destination appeal.

At TGP International, we've seen first-hand how thoughtfully planned hospitality transforms developments into destinations. The most successful places don't simply include restaurants and cafés. They use hospitality strategically to create identity, drive commercial performance and build lasting communities.

So what does that look like in practice?

1. Major F&B Anchors Create a Reason to Visit

Every successful destination needs a compelling reason for people to visit. Increasingly, that reason is food. Markets, food halls and curated dining districts have become some of the strongest anchors within modern developments, attracting visitors throughout the day while creating experiences that cannot be replicated online. Unlike traditional retail, they encourage longer dwell times, repeat visitation and social interaction, generating activity that benefits surrounding businesses.

Developers are increasingly using food-led destinations as catalysts for wider regeneration. By creating activity before other elements of a scheme are fully established, hospitality builds awareness, generates early footfall and creates momentum for future phases of development.

Battersea Power Station is a strong example. Since opening, the development has welcomed more than 26 million visitors, with over 150 retail, hospitality and leisure operators helping transform the site into one of London's leading mixed-use destinations. Food and beverage plays a central role in extending activity throughout the day and evening, positioning Battersea as far more than a retail destination.

The same principle can be seen at Coal Drops Yard, Harrods Food Hall and Market Halls Canary Wharf, where carefully curated hospitality acts as the anchor for wider retail, cultural and leisure experiences.

2. Curated Hospitality Gives Places Their Identity

Great places are rarely defined by one flagship restaurant. They're defined by the mix. The most memorable neighbourhoods combine destination restaurants with independent cafés, neighbourhood bakeries, wine bars, all-day dining venues and local food retailers. Together, they create an ecosystem that reflects the character of a place while serving the people who use it every day.

Successful destination mixes typically include:

• Destination restaurants that attract visitors from further afield
• Independent cafés, bakeries and neighbourhood favourites that encourage regular local use
• Diverse cuisines and price points that appeal to different audiences throughout the day
• Hospitality experiences that complement the wider retail, cultural and public realm offer

Marylebone illustrates this particularly well. Its reputation hasn't been built around a single operator but through a carefully curated mix of independent restaurants, cafés and speciality food retailers that reinforce the area's distinctive identity. More recently, the introduction of more accessible dining alongside established restaurants has broadened its appeal while maintaining consistent footfall throughout the week.

Covent Garden offers another strong example. Its mix of historic streets, independent restaurants, flagship hospitality brands and evolving food concepts has helped establish it as one of London's leading food destinations. Rather than relying solely on retail, the district has continually strengthened its identity through carefully curated food and beverage experiences that attract both local communities and international visitors.

TGP International has played an active role in this evolving landscape through 3 Henrietta Street, a hospitality hub that serves as an incubation space for new concepts, pop-ups and emerging brands. The venue has provided a platform for testing innovative dining experiences while bringing fresh energy to Covent Garden's food scene. Recent examples include the launch of Spey Shack's London pop-up, introducing the flavours and produce of Scotland's Speyside to the heart of the city and demonstrating how distinctive hospitality concepts can enrich a destination's identity.

Ultimately, successful placemaking isn't about filling vacant units. It's about curating operators, concepts and experiences that reflect the audience, culture and ambitions of a destination. As highlighted throughout TGP International's report with New London Architecture, the strongest destinations are typically characterised by:

• Curated tenant mixes rather than opportunistic leasing
• A balance of established brands and independent operators
• Diverse cuisines and accessible price points
• Hospitality concepts that create reasons to return throughout the day and week

Together, these elements create stronger destination identity, support long-term commercial success and encourage repeat visitation.

3. Great Places Serve Their Communities

While destination restaurants attract visitors, the best hospitality strategies are designed for the people who return every day. Successful placemaking depends on creating spaces where office workers grab breakfast before work, families meet at weekends, residents catch up over coffee and communities come together throughout the year.

This means creating a balanced hospitality ecosystem that:

• Serves local communities as well as visitors
• Combines premium experiences with accessible price points
• Supports independent operators alongside established brands
• Reflects the culture and character of the surrounding neighbourhood

Restaurants and cafés increasingly function as social infrastructure, providing informal gathering spaces that shape how people move through cities and how connected they feel to a place. When planned intentionally, they become places that support both commercial success and community wellbeing.

Canary Wharf demonstrates this evolution. Once known primarily as London's financial district, it has transformed into a far more balanced mixed-use neighbourhood through investment in more than 80 restaurants, cafés and bars alongside food markets, casual dining concepts and year-round cultural programming. Hospitality has extended activity well beyond traditional office hours, attracting residents, workers and visitors while creating a more vibrant, resilient district.

The most successful developments also build in flexibility from the outset by embracing:

• Shorter leases and incubator spaces for emerging concepts
• Opportunities for local operators and independent businesses
• Seasonal activations, pop-ups and community programmes
• Hospitality offers that can evolve alongside changing neighbourhoods

Ultimately, the strongest destinations aren't designed solely for visitors. They're designed for the people who use them every day, creating places that remain commercially successful because they continue to serve the communities around them.

Hospitality Should Be Planned, Not Added

Across TGP International's work with developers, investors, placemakers, architects and city planners, one message has become increasingly clear: hospitality should no longer be treated as the final stage of development. Instead, food and beverage strategy should be considered from the very beginning, shaping how places are experienced, activated and remembered.

Ground-floor restaurants and cafés shape first impressions of a development. Food and beverage influences how people move through a space, where they choose to gather, how long they stay and how they experience an entire destination. When integrated early into masterplanning, hospitality becomes part of a development's strategic infrastructure rather than simply another commercial tenant.

As consumer expectations continue to evolve, destinations will increasingly compete on the quality of the experience they offer rather than location alone. People are willing to travel further, stay longer and spend more for places that feel authentic, vibrant and constantly evolving. In fact, 69% of consumers globally say they are willing to pay more for high-quality experiences.

Creating Places People Choose

Great hospitality has never been just about food and beverage. It's about creating places that people actively choose. Places they seek out because there's something worth discovering. Places that reflect the character of their community. Places that continue to evolve through thoughtful curation, local operators and experiences that bring people together.

At TGP International, we believe hospitality should never be an afterthought. When embedded into masterplanning from the outset, it becomes one of the most powerful tools for creating commercially successful, socially connected and culturally relevant destinations.

Because the most successful places aren't remembered for their architecture alone. They're remembered for how they made people feel. And more often than not, hospitality is what creates that lasting impression.

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