Just Restaurants?

As we approach the launch date of Palore’s new US version, some of our users have asked us why we focus so much on restaurants, claiming that there’s so much more to Local Search than just restaurant search.

Indeed, there’s more to life than just looking for a place to eat, and indeed we plan on diversifying into new areas of Local Search (those of you who saw our Test environment should already have an idea of what’s coming up…).  

But before moving on to larger things, I thought it would be worthwile to share some stats from the National Restaurant Association’s industry report:

• Number of US restaurants: 935,000
• Projected sales for 2007: $537 billion
• Number of employees: 12.8 million (the industry is the largest employer besides government)

Considering the fact that the Internet is becoming the primary search tool for finding restaurants, I’d say it’s a juicy little segment to start with…