Dubai Expo 2020: Online restaurant reservation platform Eazydiner bets big on Dubai's F&B market

It's been three years since online restaurant reservation platform EazyDiner made a foray into Dubai's promising food and beverages (F&B) market. The app has recorded a total of 48,000 diners table reservations every month, and listed over 6,700 restaurants in the Emirate.

But, what lies ahead for the company in Dubai's F&B market? Is it strong enough to withstand a possible consumption slowdown? And most importantly, what are its growth prospects within the Emirate? To discuss this Jude Sannith spoke to EazyDiner's co-founder Kapil Chopra.

Chopra said: "We started EazyDiner in Dubai three years back and one of the reasons for me to start EazyDiner operations in Dubai was, every time I visited Dubai I saw that they had a very vibrant F&B and restaurants scene."

The restaurants were practically packed every weekend and on weekdays the good restaurants hardly have space for lunch, he added.

The other good part of Dubai is that the purchasing power is much higher. The average per cover for blended restaurants in India is about Rs 900-1000 per diner, while in Dubai it is close to Rs 1,800 per diner, that makes it a very interesting play for somebody like us who is trying to get people into great restaurants, he explained.

He further added: "Overall the market has been growing 100 percent year on year. I hear a lot about the Dubai economy and 2020 and what is going to happen post 2020 but from a F&B perspective, from an eating out perspective, we actually do not see any recession, we do not see any slowdown."

"The busier restaurants are getting even busier, new restaurants are opening and for me if you really look at Asia and Middle East, I think Dubai is the cuisine capital of the Middle East and Asia in a very significant way."