You decided to invest in the construction of a decent hotel, in addition, you have both money and a land plot. Next, you ask the eternal question: where to start? And ... unfortunately, you make the most common mistake by hiring a design organization right away. To avoid all the pitfalls that await the investor at the construction stage and to be sure that everything is planned correctly, and your hotel (of course, subject to competent management) gives you the maximum possible income, first of all you need to create a concept.
A concept is a document that is a guideline and a task first for each contractor - from a designer to a plumber, and ultimately for a manager. It describes: object status, corporate identity, enterprise structure, investment analysis, marketing policy, etc.
In order for your guests to be really comfortable and cozy in your hotel, and it will work as efficiently as possible, bringing decent profit, special attention should be paid to its marketing part when developing the concept. In the concept, it is necessary to describe the hotel product and highlight its main consumer groups. By hotel product we mean all the facilities that make up the hotel complex (hotel rooms, restaurants, casinos, bars, etc.), as well as the services provided by them. In addition, you should indicate those additional options that will distance you from competitors, that is, characterize the exclusivity of your product - what you enter the market with.
When determining the main consumer groups of a hotel complex, they should be segmented according to certain criteria. The criteria for segmentation of the target market can be different: demographic (gender, age, income, occupation); psychographic (social class, lifestyle), etc. There is no single way to market segmentation. In order to most objectively assess the structure of the market, in each case, different segmentation criteria are selected.
Private hotel: Corporate identity
If you initially plan to include your hotel in the hotel chain, that is, stand under a well-known brand, then in this case the issue of corporate identity is resolved - it is determined by your chosen brand. If you do not want to pay for someone else’s brand, you need to solve the difficult task of developing your own corporate identity and interior design for all hotel facilities.
The main thing that needs to be guided in solving this problem is the concept of the hotel, where the classification status of the objects included in its composition, the main consumer groups, etc. is determined.
This information is the basis for determining the color scheme and a set of finishing materials. The name of the hotel should be taken very carefully: on the one hand, it must be easy to remember, unique (otherwise difficulties may arise with the registration of a trademark), and on the other, it should contain “keywords” that are strongly associated with the concept of “world level” quality ”in the hospitality industry.
And most importantly: the corporate identity should be uniform, and its elements should be traced in absolutely everything: in the name, in the logo, in the uniform of the staff, in the advertising products, and in the design of all rooms, from the entrance to the rooms and toilets . To do this, you should initially, in concept, think through and develop the corporate identity of your hotel, then all the objects inside the hotel will look organic and stylish.
Private Hotel: Project Development
The construction of the hotel begins with the project. In Russia there are a large number of design institutes, and they carry out their work very efficiently. But all of them have a “lame" technology. This can be expressed in inefficiently used areas, and in the wrong location of various infrastructure objects of the hotel.
As a result, when designing a hotel complex, technological errors can be made that not only do not optimize, but even complicate, and sometimes even make the operation of the facility impossible. Often this is due to the lack of thought of horizontal and vertical connections. If horizontal connections are not thought out, then a bar or restaurant can be torn off from the kitchen, or house keeping service from the laundry.
In case of violation of vertical connections, there may be no freight elevators for staff and baggage. In this case, you will have to carry both the luggage of guests and dirty and clean linen on guest elevators, and this is a direct violation of all standards. All this ultimately has a direct impact on the profitability of the enterprise.
Unfortunately, such a concept as project profitability is unknown to many design organizations. As a result, projects are created in which the investor's material resources are spent uneconomically, space and equipment are used inefficiently.
That is why the designer can lay two corridors when you can do one (without violating requirements and standards!), Or on each floor - two rooms for maids, because it should be so: one for storing clean, the other for dirty laundry. But after all, both underwear can coexist in the same room and without violating sanitary standards - in closed plastic bags. So adapting the concept and design to hotel technology is a very serious thing, and even an experienced builder will not be able to cope with this task.
In a word, in order to avoid technological errors in the design of a hotel complex, the correction of which is very expensive for investors, it is necessary to observe two basic conditions. Firstly, designers should receive competently drawn up technical specifications for hotel design.
Secondly, the project should be monitored and adjusted by specialists with extensive experience in operating hotel enterprises. Only under these conditions, the final version of the project will be optimal both from the point of view of technology (in accordance with international standards), and from the point of view of saving investor funds, and from the point of view of compliance with the originally developed and approved concept of the hotel.
Private hotel: Investment calculations
Most often, the investor orders specialists an investment analysis of the project. When calculating the payback period of a project, the most important thing is the correct input data. First of all, this is reliable statistics, which can be obtained only from professionals with extensive experience in the construction and management of hotels.
If you put inaccurate figures, then, unfortunately, after the opening of the hotel, it turns out that the calculations and reality are located at opposite poles.
You can advise the investor to carefully choose the company and apply only to those specialists who have been in this business for more than a year, which means they have developed statistics based on their own experience. An experienced specialist, looking at the concept of the enterprise, immediately determines those divisions of the hotel complex that generate income. These will include the number of rooms, restaurant services, banquet services, communication services, if present - minibars, a fitness center, parking and other income (which include the rental of space in the lobby, concession income, etc.).
The first and main component of the revenue side is hotel rooms. To calculate the income: you need to know the load of rooms and the average cost of a room. But getting reliable data on loading and average room rates is very difficult. In order to get the last figure, you need to conduct a serious marketing research, analyze the data and determine the selling price of the rooms, and in the context of the categories.
Suppose you managed to get information on loading and average room rates from competitors or from official sources. But, not being a specialist, it is impossible to calculate a minibar, communication services, income from laundry, dry cleaning, rent, a business center - this information can only be obtained from personal experience or based on other people's statistics.
And truly a secret behind seven seals for those who do not have their own hotel company, is the issue of the cost of accommodation services. Indeed, in order to calculate it, you need to know the staffing structure, salary fund and its distribution by departments, as well as all the material costs of maintaining the number of rooms.
Additional income must also be able to count. And this may not be a small amount. So, with proper management, a hotel with 1000 square meters. m of guest space, for catering services alone, should have an annual turnover of 1.5–2 million.
If we talk about expenditure, in the investment analysis should be calculated production, administrative and office costs. It is also necessary to include credit obligations, to bring all parts together, and this is not even an easy task for highly qualified financiers. Moreover, an experienced manager will certainly require you information on the balance sheets: for the first year - with a breakdown by months, for the next three years - with a breakdown by quarters and another two years - with annual amounts.
A professional manager needs long-term planning, because he does not operate with absolute numbers, but rather with percentage ratios. All this information, on the basis of which the operating budget of the enterprise is compiled, should be contained in the investment analysis - an integral part of the concept. And such an analysis should be developed by professionals, people who have first-hand knowledge of production, that is, the hotel business.
Such an organization that develops a concept and accompanies the implementation of the project before commissioning, and can become a professional company that provides consulting services and management of facilities of the hospitality industry.
But the investor should know that not everyone, even a high-class specialist, will be able to create and successfully implement the hotel concept, which is in demand in the market and brings the planned income. This is a non-standard, creative document, the development of which requires the involvement of a large number of narrow specialists, so it is simply impossible to compose it using certain templates. Actually, therefore, specialized companies are employed for these tasks, having a staff of employees who have knowledge of certain methods and technologies of the hotel business and have extensive experience in this field.
However, if you have a competently developed concept, you have a “genocode” of your object, a task, according to which all contractors will work. And of course, in order for your brainchild to develop correctly, it is necessary to monitor the implementation of the concept at all stages, and it is clear that it will be best to do this with the specialists who developed it.
Based on an article by Sergey Galynin (General Director of Hospitality Management Group)
* The article is more than 8 years old. May contain outdated data