Part of offering a breakfast buffet that’s a selling point for your hotel is making sure you offer options for as wide a range of guests as possible.

Pastries are great, yoghurt, hard-boiled eggs, toast (of course, with plenty of butter), jam and conserve options, juice and cereals.

Guests from certain cultures expect to see cereal as a breakfast option. Generally having some sort of muesli or granola is standard. If you offer no other cereals, offer this. Having at least three breakfast cereal options is best, however: A healthy one like muesli or bran flakes, a sensible one such as corn flakes, for example, something adults can eat without guilt but with plenty of tasty fresh fruit on. And, of course, a cereal to keep the kids happy and start their parents’ days off right. Weet-Bix is something that kids know and like.

Make sure the hot drinks part of the buffet has plenty of teas, maybe even some the guests don’t have in their room amenities, such as the slightly fancier Earl Grey, English Breakfast or Darjeeling teas. Loose teas as options along with tea bags? Impressive!

It depends how you’re set up and who you’re catering to but, if at all possible, having someone at the buffet who can cook eggs to order is a guest-pleaser. For those who liked cooked breakfasts, instead of the coffee-n-doughnuts or cereal eaters, grilled tomatoes, sausages, hot pancakes and the like are easy to prepare.

Above all, remember this: Offering breakfast along with the room is a selling point only if it’s a breakfast that the guest actually wants to eat.