Hospitality operators have spent the past several years adding QR codes to nearly every guest touchpoint, including welcome folders, elevator banners, checkout counters, and feedback kiosks. However, until recently, little data existed showing which of those placements guests actually use.
A new study from Scanova, a QR code generation and tracking platform, offers one of the first large-scale answers. The analysis covers 7.4 million scans recorded across 52 hotel and resort brands, with each code tracked from the day it was first created rather than over a single reporting period.
Menus Lead Every Other Use Case
One use case stands well ahead of the rest: menus. Across the properties studied, in-room and restaurant menu codes generated more scan activity than any other use case, including WiFi access, loyalty enrollment, checkout, and guest feedback. Codes in the hotel and resort segment averaged 2,096 scans apiece over their lifetime, an average pulled upward by a smaller set of heavily used codes, most of them tied to dining.
The findings rely on first-party scan-event data, not a marketer survey. That distinction matters because it measures guests’ actual behavior, not what operators assumed. The data set includes codes created more than a decade ago, and totals reflect each code’s full lifetime rather than a single calendar year. The report also breaks results out at the account level, tracking median scans per account and median codes per account, which gives multi-property groups a way to benchmark performance across a portfolio rather than code by code.
The Same Pattern Shows Up in Every Industry
That concentration is not unique to hospitality. The same study also covered consumer packaged goods, manufacturing, and food and beverage manufacturing, and revealed the same finding in each: a small share of codes accounts for most of the scans. Across the four sectors, the top 5 percent of codes drove between 78 percent and 95 percent of total scan volume within their own industry.
Not every QR code deployment carries equal weight. A code tucked into a laminated table stand or printed faintly on a door hanger competes for the same attention as one placed at eye level on a table tent, and the difference in visibility appears to matter. Menu codes sit at the center of a recurring, high-frequency guest behavior: dining. That earns them outsized engagement almost regardless of design polish.
The report also looks at how codes are built, not just where they are placed. It distinguishes dynamic QR codes, whose destination can be updated after printing, from static codes that cannot be changed once generated, and separates custom-designed codes from plain black-and-white versions. For hotel and resort operators, where menus get reprinted seasonally, and a code often needs to point to whichever dish or promotion is currently running, that distinction carries practical weight for maintenance alone, separate from how well a code performs.
Where Hotels Have Room to Grow
Secondary use cases tell a different story. WiFi access, loyalty sign-ups, and feedback codes saw comparatively modest engagement across the properties studied. That looks more like an underused touchpoint than guest indifference: a code at check-in competes for attention during one of the most transactional, low-dwell moments of a stay, while a menu code shows up exactly when a guest is already looking for information.
The findings land as more hotel groups treat QR codes as a standing part of guest communication, not a pandemic-era workaround. Many properties adopted QR-based menus and check-in flows quickly in 2020 and 2021, often without revisiting placement or design once initial adoption settled. Benchmark data like this gives operators a way to compare their own scan activity against an industry pattern instead of relying on anecdote.
Whether a property’s own menu codes perform in line with the study will depend on factors the report did not isolate, including table location, code size, and whether a code sits alongside a printed menu or serves as the only one. Still, the pattern holds: In hotels and resorts, the QR code doing the most work is rarely the one at the front desk.