A Chat With Liam Crooks, Managing Director Of EMEA Hospitality At Lightspeed And MENA40 Judge

Please introduce yourself and tell us about Lightspeed and your role as Managing Director of EMEA Hospitality. What does the company do and how has it evolved in recent years?

Lightspeed is a global ePOS and payments provider that helps ambitious hospitality and retail businesses in over 100 countries to improve efficiency and performance. In the UK, venues like Big Mamma Group, Poke House and Mamma Dough use Lightspeed.

My role focuses on helping hospitality businesses navigate one of the toughest economic climates in recent years through technology and operational innovation. I lead our EMEA hospitality strategy and work closely with operators to understand the real pressures they’re facing – such as elevated labour costs, tight margins or changing customer expectations – and show them how technology can help them operate more efficiently and grow sustainably.

In 2025, we celebrated 20 years of Lightspeed. Our CEO, Dax Dasilva, originally founded the company to give smaller retail merchants access to the same level of technology that large chains were using. Since then, Lightspeed has expanded into hospitality and grown into a platform that combines ePOS, payments, loyalty and AI-powered insights to help venues run more efficiently.

The UK hospitality industry has faced a difficult few years, from inflation and staffing pressures to changing consumer habits. What do you see as the biggest challenges operators are dealing with right now?

There’s no doubt the hospitality industry is still operating under immense pressure. Despite hospitality being one of the UK’s biggest employers and the backdrop to so many important social moments, operators continue to face challenges around elevated costs, squeezed consumer spending, and business rate reforms.

From speaking to our customers on the ground, we know that margins are tight as inflation continues to affect everything from ingredients to utilities and rent. At the same time, consumers are becoming much more selective about where and how often they dine out. Lightspeed research showed that by the end of 2025, 44% of Brits expected to reduce their dining out spending due to inflation. This combination of higher operating costs and weaker consumer spending is making it increasingly difficult for venues to thrive.

Business rates are adding to the strain, especially for independent operators that don’t have the same resources as larger companies. While reforms could help, there are still concerns about whether the system fairly reflects the realities of running different types of hospitality businesses.

Despite those challenges, are there any opportunities emerging for hospitality businesses in 2026 that perhaps didn’t exist a few years ago?

Absolutely – it’s tough out there for hospitality but it’s not all doom and gloom. One of the biggest opportunities we’re seeing is the shift towards experience-led dining, with 36% of UK diners saying this is important for restaurants to offer. As purse strings tighten, people can be more selective with how they spend their money, so venues that can offer memorable, personalised experiences are standing out. That could be anything from curated tasting menus and immersive events to hyper-local concepts that a venue’s community would be interested in.

Technology has also levelled the playing field. Independent venues now have access to enterprise-grade tools such as Lightspeed, which provide one place for operations like inventory management, advanced reporting, integrated payments or benchmarking against competitors. At our annual Edge Summit event in London, we launched a new tool and updates to our existing technology to help our customers navigate the changing hospitality landscape.

Data is a huge part of this too. A few years ago, many operators didn’t have instant access to insights about customer behaviour. Today, they can understand purchasing patterns, peak trading times, guest preferences and loyalty trends in real time, which allows them to make smarter commercial decisions and deploy different measures so that they can compete more effectively and grow.

The benefits of getting this data through an integrated platform where you can actually make changes are also huge. When you’re running a busy restaurant, the last thing you want to be doing is trawling through spreadsheets at the end of a shift. Using a technology tool that tracks all parts of your operations means you’ve got this information at your fingertips whatever the time of day and even if you aren’t at the restaurant, saving time that can then be spent on delivering better guest experiences.

Lightspeed’s latest research looks at changing consumer dining habits, including menus tailored to people on weight loss journeys. Are hospitality businesses becoming more responsive to health-conscious and personalised dining trends?

Consumers are becoming far more intentional about what they eat, and hospitality businesses are starting to adapt with changes like calorie labelling or calling out clean ingredients on menus. Our research found that 55% of Brits now look for ingredients with specific health benefits – like high protein, fibre or gut-friendly properties – and nearly half are willing to pay more for them.

At the same time, the rise of weight management medications is changing how we dine out. People still want the social experience of restaurants, but many are eating smaller portions and 27% are more conscious of portion sizes than they were two years ago.

Having smaller plates and lighter options on their menus can help operators to answer better to changing consumer habits, while also reducing operational costs and drawing in a new type of customer to their venues. During a time where increasing footfall is important to hospitality, this kind of menu innovation could be the difference between a diner choosing your restaurant over a competitor.
 

Your research also explores how technology can improve the dining experience itself. What kinds of innovations are customers actually responding positively to, and where do you think businesses sometimes get it wrong?

Guests respond best to technology when it makes the dining experience smoother, faster and more personalised. There is interest in this, with 40% of diners believing that AI-powered tools like personalised recommendations or voice-assisted ordering would be beneficial in hospitality, particularly when they help remove friction rather than add complexity.

But convenience alone isn’t enough, it’s the execution which matters. Reliability is one of the biggest drivers of a positive experience, with 43% of diners saying it’s a priority, alongside smooth coordination between front and back-of-house teams. Customers notice very quickly when systems don’t work together seamlessly.

Where businesses sometimes get it wrong is over-automating the experience. Hospitality is still fundamentally about the human connection, so the most successful operators are using technology to support staff and improve service, rather than replace the personal element altogether.

Major sporting events like the World Cup can create huge revenue opportunities for hospitality operators. From a technology and operations perspective, how can venues best prepare for these high-demand moments?

 
Looking back at the UEFA Euro 2024 tells us a surprising, yet important, story for operators to remember ahead of the World Cup this year.

Interestingly, one of the highest-grossing days of the entire tournament wasn’t a matchday, but the Saturday before the final where England were due to play. It became a peak anticipation moment, with fans gathering ahead of the game and venues seeing a significant uplift in trade. Average transactions per location exceeded £6,000 on that day – the highest recorded during the Euros period – driven by a combination of tournament excitement and already strong weekend footfall. The venues that performed best recognised that it wasn’t just the matches themselves driving revenue, but the wider social occasions and build-up around them.

These venues didn’t get lucky – they put the right technology into place to help them succeed before the Euros even began. This World Cup season, tools like Lightspeed Pulse can help operators to monitor their live performance, especially if they have multiple venues. This can help them to see sales revenue, where service is slowing and how each hour is tracking against expectations, because this is what can make the difference between making a profit or a loss during one of the biggest sporting events of the year.

Looking ahead, how do you see the hospitality industry evolving over the next few years, and what role do you think technology will play in shaping the future of dining and guest experiences?

I think the industry will become significantly more data-driven, personalised and experience-focused.

Consumers will continue to expect convenience and personalisation as standard, and the focus on having a wide range of choice on the menu won’t go away. For operators, technology is going to become the way that they can manage these changing tides to remain competitive.

Adopting AI and automation is going to be the – I would even say most necessary – part of this, particularly when it comes to forecasting, inventory management, and customer insights. However, I don’t think hospitality will become less human. If anything, technology will allow operators to focus more on genuine guest interaction by removing operational complexity.

We’ll also continue to see consolidation around connected platforms rather than fragmented systems. Operators want simplicity, visibility and flexibility, and technology providers will need to deliver solutions that support the entire journey, from back-of-house operations to guest engagement.

Ultimately, the venues that succeed will be the ones that combine operational efficiency with exceptional customer experiences. Technology is becoming the foundation that enables both.