A groundbreaking new report, Flavours of the Future: Reinventing the Food Service Sector in Friesland, Groningen & Drenthe by 2075, sets out a bold and transformative vision of how hospitality careers will evolve over the next half century. Developed by experts at the Hotel Management School Leeuwarden and commissioned by Noorderpoort, the project goes beyond traditional forecasting by using long-term scenario planning to explore how technological innovation, climate pressures, demographic shifts, and changing consumer expectations will reshape the nature of work in hospitality. At its core, the report highlights a fundamental shift: rather than disappearing, jobs in the sector will become more advanced, interdisciplinary, and knowledge-driven, blending roles in technology, sustainability, and cultural storytelling. It reveals how emerging professions from AI-driven kitchen operators to culinary ecologists will redefine what it means to work in hospitality, while also emphasising the urgent need to rethink education systems to prepare future talent for this rapidly changing landscape.
Lead researcher, Dr Ian Yeoman said:
The future of hospitality is not defined by the disappearance of jobs, but by their transformation into highly skilled, hybrid roles. Across all scenarios from automation to regeneration workers will combine technology literacy, sustainability, and hostmanship to create value in entirely new ways.
The Rise of New Hospitality Careers
The report identifies a wide range of emerging job roles that will shape the industry in 2075. These include:
- Cultured Meat Production Specialists, managing bioreactors and producing sustainable proteins for automated kitchens
- Taste Memory Archivists, preserving culinary heritage through digital and sensory archives
- Culinary Ecologists, designing regenerative food systems that restore ecosystems
- Eco-Hosts, combining roles as chefs, guides, conservationists, and storytellers
- Robotics and AI System Managers, maintaining fully automated restaurants
These roles reflect a major shift away from traditional service jobs toward multidisciplinary professions combining hospitality, science, technology, and sustainability.
From Service Workers to Hybrid Professionals
According to the report, the hospitality workforce of the future will require a radical transformation in skills. Routine, manual tasks will increasingly be handled by automation, while human roles will focus on:
- Managing and collaborating with AI and robotics systems
- Interpreting data and personalising guest experiences
- Designing immersive, multisensory dining experiences
- Applying sustainability principles across operations
- Communicating complex ideas such as environmental impact and food origins to guests
Workers will need to combine technical expertise with creativity, emotional intelligence, and cultural insight, making hospitality careers more intellectually demanding than ever before.
A New Skills Agenda for 2075
The report outlines five key skill domains that will define future success in hospitality:
- Technological literacy – understanding AI, robotics, and automated systems
- Biotechnology knowledge – working with lab-grown foods and advanced food science
- Sustainability competence – measuring and reducing environmental impact
- Cultural and storytelling skills – creating authentic, meaningful guest experiences
- Adaptive thinking – responding to rapid technological and societal change
This shift signals a move from low-skilled labour toward high-skilled, knowledge-based careers across all hospitality segments.
Education Must Be Transformed
To support these new roles, the report calls for a complete redesign of hospitality education. Traditional classroom-based learning will no longer be sufficient. Instead, the future will be shaped by:
- Living labs, where students work with real technologies such as robots, AI systems, and bioreactors
- Cross-disciplinary programmes combining hospitality, engineering, bioscience, and environmental studies
- Industry partnerships, integrating education with real-world innovation ecosystems
- Experiential learning, where students co-create solutions and test ideas in real contexts
Education will become more hands-on, collaborative, and innovation-driven, preparing students for a world where boundaries between disciplines and between education and industry—are increasingly blurred.
Preparing for Multiple Futures
The report emphasises that there is no single future for hospitality. Instead, five different scenarios are presented, ranging from fully automated fast-food systems to regenerative island ecosystems and luxury Michelin-star clusters. Across all scenarios, however, one constant remains:
The need to invest in talent, skills, and education to prepare for a rapidly changing labour market.
Strategic decisions about training, curriculum design, and workforce development will determine whether the region can thrive in the face of technological disruption and sustainability challenges.
A Call to Action
The Flavours of the Future report concludes that the Northern Provinces have a unique opportunity to lead the transformation of hospitality by aligning technology, sustainability, and education.
By investing in future skills today, the region can create a workforce capable of navigating automation, preserving cultural identity, and delivering innovative food experiences for generations to come.
Project Team
Dr Ian Yeoman, Professor of Disruption, Innovation & New Phenomena
Dr Elena Cavagnaro, Professor of Sustainability in Hospitality & Tourism
Dr Hanneke Assen, Professor of International Hospitality Education