An app is helping the hospitality industry bounce back from its pandemic-related malaise by giving consumers information on the best food and drink offers at their local venues, inspiring them to eat more often with family and friends.
Originally launched in 2004 before smartphones were around, the Happiest Hour was an email database of looking for the latest pub specials in their local area. With the advent of the iphone in the late 2000s the team created an app offering users the most relevant pub specials to them.
“I co-founded The Happiest Hour as Australia has some of the pubs in the world, and many have great happy hours and weekly food specials, but they are difficult to find on a reliable platform,” Joonas Karppinen, the venture’s CEO, said. “What’s better than visiting a great pub special with family or friends?”
Since the post-pandemic relaunch of the app Joans and his team – headed up by Nicola, a former experience director at Deloitte who handles Happiest Hour’s branding and user experiences, and ex Ogilvy art director Louis who heads up the app’s development and marketing – have collated special offers from over 1000 venues in Sydney and Melbourne, and plan to expand nationally.
“COVID had caused a shift of over $1 billion of revenue from on-premise dining in pubs to food delivery,” Joonas explained. “We want to support local pubs and move a large chunk of this revenue back to on-premise.
“And [the pandemic] instigated antisocial stay-at-home habits which have lingered on much longer than many anticipated,” he added. “We want to play a role in getting people back out to local venues with family and friends, fully aware that social connections are the key to happiness*.”
The current economic climate, and associated cost-of-living pressures, reinforce the app’s relevance to Joonas in providing people with a financial incentive – through the special offers the app highlights – to continue supporting local venues.
* Harvard research revealing the key to living longer and happier published on Forbes.com
