Living near the coast means that you will at specific times during the year have a huge number of visitors taking over the shops, streets and also the restaurants.

Today I would like to tell you about a mobile app that each and every owner of a restaurant, guesthouse, pub or even take-away restaurant should take seriously. The app I am referring to is Foodspotting. Foodspotting is a geo-location-based social application which enables your customers to share photos and also recommendations about the food they eat at your restaurant.

Let’s say I am on holiday and I am hungry. How would I know which of the restaurants that I am near to have the best food or value for money? How do I know if that pizza I just ordered will actually be worth the money I paid? Will it be tasty? What will it look like?

With the Foodspotting app I simply open the app and ask the app to show me food in the area. I am presented with photos of different dishes from a number of nearby restaurants. Many of the dishes will have comments added. Now I can simply look at all the photos and decide what I am in the mood for. It is a mobile menu!

There are two ways of getting your dishes onto Foodspotting. Adding them yourself or encouraging your customers to add the dishes themselves is one way. The second option will get your customers involved.

Why not post signs that state that if they upload an image and a recommendation onto Foodspotting they could get a 5% or 10% discount? Why not let your customers do some marketing for you?

If you start now you can have many reviews by the end of the year when the thousands of Gauteng Yuppies descend on the coast with their smartphones. The app is available free for the iPhone, Windows Phone, Blackberry and also all Android phones. Get it today by visiting www.foodspotting.com.