SINGAPOREANS rely heavily on social media and personal referrals when looking for information on new restaurants, and prefer to book directly with eateries, thanks to incentives that come with direct reservations.

This is according to new research by guest experience and retention platform, SevenRooms and independent consumer research agency Antenna, the findings of which were shared with The Business Times. SevenRooms handles, for example, reservation, waitlist and table management, online ordering, review aggregation and e-mail marketing in the hospitality industry.

The research team polled 1,021 Singaporeans aged over 18 across the nation in March.