The hotel renovation has slipped by a year. What revenue can the owner still protect?
In this illustrative case, a hotel postpones the renovation of ten guest rooms and a meeting room for twelve months. The budget assumed a €30 increase per night across ten renovated rooms, each sold for 200 nights in the year. At unchanged sales volume, that would mean €60,000 in additional room revenue. With the work postponed, I take that uplift out of the base budget and rebuild the forecast, category by category, using the rooms the hotel can actually sell.
Start with the events already under contract
Some clients chose the hotel for a refurbished meeting room that will not be ready. I would review the contracts, establish what the team can deliver and offer an alternative before the client discovers the problem. To decide how far to go, I look at what the booking contributes across the whole stay. That includes guest rooms, meeting space and catering, after costs and any concessions.
Work out which rooms can go back on sale
I would separate the repositioning work from the smaller interventions that can bring rooms back into service. If a targeted repair can reopen two rooms, I calculate how many extra nights the hotel would need to sell to cover the cost. I then check whether those nights are realistic on dates when the hotel is short of rooms. An extra room makes little difference on a night when half the hotel is already empty.
Give the owner three figures to decide on
The owner needs to know how much revenue the hotel can protect this year, what to spend now and how much investment to reconsider later. If the hotel cannot command the rate the project needs in its current condition, I recommend revising the annual target. Some of the revenue gap may remain. I would quantify it when the decision is made, so the sales team does not spend the rest of the year trying to make up for a renovation that has not happened.
Stéphane-Jean Lacroix · Trouverlecap
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