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Before We Build It, Does the Hotel Make Sense?

Tue, 29 Sep 2026 02:29:10 GMT

Issue 09 | September 2026

A periodic publication by 3AM Hospitality Consultants.

Before I get too far into a hotel feasibility study, I normally do what I call my paper-napkin calculation. It can literally be on the back of a piece of paper, although after enough years in the business I can do most of it in my head. How many rooms? What occupancy can the market support? What average

rate? What does that give me in revenue? What should flow through to EBITDA? What will the hotel cost to build? What sort of return does that leave the owner? I’m not looking for precision at this point.

I’m asking a much simpler question:

Does this hotel make economic sense?

After many years as a hotel development consultant in the Philippines and the region, I carry a lot of benchmarks in my head. I have a reasonable idea of ADR and occupancy in the main markets. I also know roughly what different categories of hotels should cost to build.

So, when somebody shows me a number that doesn’t look right, I substitute something I think is reasonable and run the calculation again. I’m not trying to prove anybody wrong. I want to know what assumptions I have to believe for the investment to work.

Location Comes First

Before anything goes onto my napkin, I need to believe in the location. For an established market, I want to understand the demand generators. Why are people coming? What’s driving corporate, leisure, group or other business? For a new or emerging destination, access becomes even more important. How are guests going to get there? What airport supports it? What infrastructure exists today, and what is genuinely coming?

Owning a piece of land doesn’t automatically mean you should put a hotel on it. Once I’m comfortable with the location, I look at market demand and the competitive set. Most of the projects I work on are in the 4- or 5-star space. I want to understand where the gaps are and whether the proposed hotel can realistically compete.

Once stabilised, I generally want to believe we can be at least number two in the competitive set. Then I work backwards. How much business do we need to take from the existing hotels? How much organic market growth do we need? What new supply is coming? The more things that must go right, the more cautious I become.

Then I Run the Numbers

The paper-napkin calculation itself is straightforward. Rooms. Occupancy. ADR. Other revenues. Operating costs. EBITDA. Development cost. Owner’s return.

Inflation matters as well. If the hotel opens several years from now, today’s ADR, payroll and construction costs aren’t necessarily the numbers that matter.

Then I look at payback.

Five-year payback? Now you have my attention. I don’t see that very often in hotels. Then my next question is: what assumptions did we use to get there?

If I have to assume an ADR significantly above the market, very high occupancy, aggressive market growth and a development budget I don’t believe, I don’t really have an attractive return.

I have four very optimistic assumptions. A spreadsheet can make almost any hotel work if you’re prepared to keep changing the assumptions. I’d rather use assumptions I can defend and see what return comes out.

Watch the Capital

Hotels are very easy to overbuild. I like nice hotels. I also like owners getting their money back. Those aren’t contradictory.

If we’re building a 5-star hotel and expecting a 5-star rate, then the rooms product and brand experience must support it.

But spending more doesn’t automatically create more value. I’m constantly looking at development cost and asking what we’re getting for it. Does this improve something the guest will value? Does the hotel need it to perform properly? Does it help us achieve the positioning and rate we’re underwriting?

If not, why are we spending the money? The objective isn’t to make the hotel cheap. It’s to remove costs that aren’t creating corresponding value without damaging the product we’re expecting guests to pay for.

You can’t underbuild the hotel and leave the 5-star ADR in the spreadsheet.

The same discipline applies to the brand.

In a very strong location, I may be more comfortable considering our own brand. In a more difficult location, an established brand may bring distribution, recognition and demand that the project needs.

But it comes at a cost. Put the fees, development requirements and operating implications into the napkin and run it again. A hotel brand must earn its keep.

Cash First

EBITDA is useful. I use it. But it’s not the end of the calculation.

Ultimately, I want to understand what the hotel can reasonably return to the owner relative to the capital required to create it.

Then I look at the asset we’ve created. What did it cost us to build, and what would a rational investor pay for the cash flows that hotel should generate?

I sometimes think about it another way:

If we completed the hotel tomorrow and decided to sell it, have we created value or destroyed it?

A hotel can be beautiful. It can be busy. It can even be profitable. And it can still be a poor investment if we spent too much money creating it.

I want the cash economics to work first. I don’t want an optimistic future sale price rescuing a weak hotel investment.

Then Give Me the Feasibility Study

By this point, I already have a view. I’ve looked at the location, demand and competitive set. I’ve sense-checked occupancy and ADR. I have an idea of what the hotel should cost to build. And I’ve run the paper-napkin calculation. Now give me the feasibility study. I use it to validate my initial assumptions and, importantly, tell me where I might be wrong.

The owner also needs a proper study that can support discussions with the bank and other stakeholders.

But the feasibility study should test the investment case, not manufacture one. If its numbers are materially different from mine, that’s fine.

Now we have something to discuss.

Sometimes It Doesn’t Work

I’ve walked away from projects. Sometimes I simply don’t believe the economics. Sometimes I don’t believe the owner is prepared to build the product required to achieve the positioning and rates being assumed.

By that stage, I’ve normally already value-engineered quite a lot of the hotel in my head. I’ve challenged the development cost. I’ve challenged the ADR and occupancy. I’ve looked at the market and what the hotel needs to become once it stabilises.

If it still doesn’t work, changing the spreadsheet doesn’t interest me very much. At some point, the numbers have to meet the real world.

And sometimes the most useful thing you can tell an owner is: Don’t build it.

It’s considerably cheaper to find that out on the back of a napkin than after the first shovel hits the ground.

About the Author

Arthur Gindap is Managing Partner of 3AM Hospitality Consulting and a hotel development consultant advising and partnering with hospitality businesses to build, scale and unlock value across assets and platforms.

He previously led Robinsons Hotels and Resorts, driving portfolio growth and landmark developments including NUSTAR Cebu, Fili Urban Resort and NUSTAR Hotel. His earlier career with The Ascott Limited, Shangri-La and Mandarin Oriental spans multi-market operations, brand development and luxury hospitality.

Art remains actively involved in hospitality consultancies, investments and new ventures, alongside board and governance roles. His approach combines strategic oversight with operational discipline, with a focus on building businesses that create sustainable long-term value.

Considering a Hotel Development?

A feasibility study should do more than demonstrate that a hotel can be built. It should help an owner decide whether it should be built. As hotel development consultants, 3AM Hospitality Consulting works with hotel owners and developers from the earliest stages of a project, testing market demand, positioning, development economics, brand strategy and the assumptions behind the investment case.

If you’re considering a new hotel, resort or hospitality development, contact 3AM Hospitality Consulting before the first shovel hits the ground .

www.3am.com.ph

Disclaimer

This article shares general hospitality perspectives. The appropriate brand and operating model depends on each hotel's market, ownership objectives, and circumstances.

Navigating the Christmas Galaxy: A Food & Beverage Consultants Guide

Thu, 24 Sep 2026 01:46:08 GMT

Issue 08 | September 2026

A periodic publication by 3AM Hospitality Consultants.

Every September, Christmas seems to take the Philippine hotel industry by surprise.

It shouldn’t. We know when Christmas is. We know the parties are coming. We know we’re going to need more people, more stock and probably more patience.

Yet what typically happens is operations starts planning late, Marketing kicks in halfway through the promotion, and then everyone blames Marketing.

By failing to prepare, we are preparing to fail.

That’s what restaurant consulting is really about — turning something predictable into a plan long before it becomes urgent.

For me, September is not when you start planning Christmas. By September, you should be executing.

I generally want product, price, promotion and place worked out at least three months ahead. If you want print magazines involved, you may need to start five months out.

Ideally, by the end of August, the major F&B plan for the rest of the year is locked. That doesn’t mean we can’t change it. It means we have something to change.

Don’t Just Plan Christmas

Start with the calendar.

Look at the long weekends and occasions that could matter to your particular business. Halloween. All Saints’ and All Souls’. 11.11. Bonifacio Day. Simbang Gabi. Christmas. Rizal Day. New Year. Not every

occasion matters to every restaurant. That’s the point.

Then overlay history.

What happened last year? What were the covers? What was RevPASH? What did Banquets do? Where were we full? Where were we quiet?

For hotels, overlay room occupancy as well. Restaurants don’t operate independently of the hotel upstairs.

And look at booking pace.

Hotels obsess about booking pace. Strangely, restaurants hardly look at it. During Christmas they absolutely should.

If Christmas Eve did 250 covers last year, that’s useful. But I also want to know how this year’s reservations are pacing against last year.

Are we ahead or behind at the same point in the booking cycle?

If we’re behind, I want to know while Marketing can still do something about it. If we’re ahead, perhaps I should be thinking about yield.

And don’t forget what I call the in-between days.

Everyone looks at Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. What about December 26? The days between Christmas and New Year? The day after the promotion ends?

Those days can disappear from the plan. They shouldn’t.

Know Where to Yield and Where to Sell

Not every day needs the same strategy. On peak days, I want to know how we’re maximising the demand already there.

Do we simplify the menu? Can we increase yield? Do we need deposits or full prepayment?

And what are we doing with seating times?

Those restaurant seats are perishable inventory. Once the evening is gone, you can’t sell that seat again. Can we create an early and late sitting?Where are the gaps in the reservation book? Can we channel demand into those gaps rather than simply saying we’re full?

That’s RevPASH in practical terms.

I’m not suggesting we rush guests through Christmas dinner. That defeats the purpose. The guest experience sets the boundary. Within that boundary, manage the inventory intelligently.

On quieter days, the question changes.

How do we create demand? That’s when you use the levers: Marketing, Sales, loyalty, packages, events, tactical promotions and pricing where appropriate.

The menu should be part of the thinking.

For peak days, simplify where it makes sense. Use menu engineering. Think about what is popular, profitable and, importantly, what the kitchen can execute when it’s being hammered. This is where the work of a menu development consultant earlier in the year pays for itself.

Lock down imported and long-lead products early. And if we’ve committed inventory for Christmas, what’s the plan for moving it during the valleys?

The same applies to Christmas goodies.

Hotels put up beautiful gingerbread houses, display hampers, turkeys, cakes and all sorts of things—and sometimes seem to hope they’ll sell themselves.

Give Sales a quota. If it’s a commercial product, sell it like one.

Labour Is Number One

If you ask me what worries me most going into peak season, labour is number one.

Every hotel knows it will need part-timers. And every hotel will be looking for them at roughly the same time. So don’t just calculate how many you need. Commit them. And do it early.

Reservations are equally important because they tell you what’s coming and allow you to lock in business through deposits or full payment on key dates.

I also want to know where we’re going to send the business when we’re full.

What’s Plan B? And if Plan B goes wrong, what’s Plan C?

These sound like simple questions until you’re standing in a full restaurant on Christmas Eve.

January Is Part of the Christmas Plan

For some hotels, Christmas is really Banquet season.

Look at the historical number of corporate Christmas parties, weddings and social events. Look at outside catering.

Then decide what you’re trying to maximise.

Volume or yield?

If everyone wants the same Friday night in December, perhaps I don’t need another promotion. I need to make sure we’re getting the right price for it. If Tuesday is empty, that’s a different conversation.

Outside catering deserves particular attention because many hotels don’t do large volumes of it

throughout the year. Then Christmas arrives and suddenly we’re doing it constantly.

That’s when things get forgotten.

I once had an outside catering event in the middle of nowhere. We got there and realised we’d forgotten the cooking oil for the tempura station. The only thing we could find was a sari-sari store. We paid cash and bought lard because that was all they had.

You don’t forget that twice.

This is hospitality consulting in the Philippines: truck bans. Traffic. Loading times. Transport windows. You can have a perfect event plan sitting in the hotel. It doesn’t help much if something you need is sitting in traffic.

January Is Part of the Christmas Plan

This is probably the part most hotels forget. Do the review.

And don’t just tell me: Revenue was up 10%. Christmas was successful.

I want to know where the business came from.

Was it Marketing? Hotel guests? Walk-ins? Loyalty members? Corporate accounts?

Which segments drove RevPASH? Which promotions created incremental business, and which simply discounted guests who were coming anyway?

Where could we have yielded harder? Where were the gaps? What did booking pace tell us? Where did we turn business away? Then use it.

That’s the bit I find strange. Christmas gives us a huge amount of data about our business every year, yet twelve months later we often start again with a blank piece of paper.

Christmas shouldn’t surprise us.

We did it last year.

About the Author

Paolo Campillo is the Managing Partner of 3AM Hospitality Consulting , advising hotel owners and developers on hotel development, operations, and long-term value creation. His philosophy is simple: make better decisions before they’re poured into concrete.

Planning for Peak Season?

The most valuable festive-season decisions are usually made months before the first Christmas promotion goes live.

If your hotel, resort or restaurant needs an independent review of its F&B strategy, revenue opportunities or operational readiness, contact 3AM Hospitality Consulting to start the conversation.

www.3am.com.ph

Disclaimer

This article shares general hospitality perspectives. The appropriate brand and operating model depends on each hotel's market, ownership objectives, and circumstances.

Menu Development: What a Food & Beverage Consultant Actually Does

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 00:40:47 GMT

Issue 07 | September 2026

A periodic publication by 3AM Hospitality Consultants.

Someone tells me their restaurant needs a new menu.

My first question is usually:

“Before we talk about the menu, tell me what the problem is we are trying to solve.”

Is it profitability? Menu popularity? Food presentation? Taste? Value for money? Has the menu simply become dated?

Because “we need a new menu” is not really a diagnosis.

And that gets to the difference between asking a chef to build a menu and bringing in a menu development consultant to develop one. The consultant should start a few steps earlier.

It Starts with the Restaurant, Not the Menu

For an independent restaurant, I would ideally start with feasibility.

What will work in this market? Who are we trying to attract? What already exists? Where is the opportunity? What should the positioning be? And do the numbers make sense?

For a hotel or resort, it gets more complicated.

You are not developing one restaurant in isolation. You are programming the hotel’s entire F&B offering.

There will probably be all-day dining. Perhaps a lobby lounge or bar. Depending on the hotel and market, there might be a specialty restaurant, a craft cocktail bar or other concepts.

Each has a different job to do. And each needs to fit within the hotel’s brand story, location and market.

I don’t believe putting a restaurant inside a five-star hotel automatically makes it a good restaurant. A specialty restaurant still has to compete with everything outside the hotel.

Ideally, we test that through proper feasibility work. Only then should we start talking seriously about the concept. And only after the concept is clear should we start developing the menu.

The Designer Shouldn’t Have to Invent the Restaurant

For new developments, we normally want to be involved once the overall F&B space programming is established but before the restaurant interior designer starts work.

There is a simple reason. The designer needs to know what they’re designing.

We first establish the concept: what the restaurant is, who it is for, how it should feel, the type of food and beverage offer, how it should operate and what makes it different. That becomes part of the brief for the designer.

I’ve seen the opposite happen too many times. A beautiful restaurant gets designed and then, somewhere towards pre-opening, an Executive Chef and F&B Director arrive, and everyone starts asking what kind of restaurant should go into it. That’s backwards.

By then, the space is fixed. The kitchen is largely fixed. The capacity is fixed. Major equipment decisions have been made.

The most valuable decisions have already been poured into concrete.

Freedom Within a Framework

I don’t see the relationship between consultant and chef as adversarial at all

We develop the framework. That may include the concept, cuisine direction, menu architecture, pricing, suggested types of dishes, possible signatures, beverage direction, service style and the experience we’re trying to create.

Then the chef creates. I think of it as freedom within a framework.

We might say the menu needs a particular type of seafood dish, or that the concept needs a signature people will remember. We don’t normally hand the chef a recipe and say, “Cook this.”

If they have a better idea, great. Explain why. Ultimately, it comes down to taste and whether the dish belongs in the concept.

I don’t see the relationship between consultant and chef as adversarial at all

Then the chef creates. I think of it as freedom within a framework.

We might say the menu needs a particular type of seafood dish, or that the concept needs a signature people will remember. We don’t normally hand the chef a recipe and say, “Cook this.”

If they have a better idea, great. Explain why. Ultimately, it comes down to taste and whether the dish belongs in the concept.

There are exceptions. At ALINO Hotel, for example, the required skill set for a beverage programme wasn’t available internally, so I became much more hands-on, including recipes, drinks, and developing and training the cocktail menu. But that’s the exception.

If an owner genuinely wants a chef-driven restaurant , that’s different again.

My test is simple: Are you willing to put the chef’s name on the door?

If you are, let the chef drive it.

If an owner genuinely wants a chef-driven restaurant , that’s different again.

My test is simple: Are you willing to put the chef’s name on the door?

If you are, let the chef drive it.

Taste Comes First

For all the talk about concepts, feasibility, menu engineering and revenue management, I have one uncomplicated belief about restaurants:

Taste comes first.

Over the years I’ve developed my own slightly unscientific 2½ rule.

There are five basic tastes: sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami (savoury). My heuristic is simple: two tastes lead, one supports.

Take sweet and sour pork.

Sweet and sour are doing the heavy lifting. Umami plays a supporting role. Aroma, temperature, texture—and that all-important crunch—complete what we experience as flavour.

That’s my 2½. It’s a heuristic, not a culinary law.

Very good chefs seem to understand restraint instinctively. They know when to stop.

The exceptional ones occasionally break my 2½ rule completely and somehow make it work.

I still haven’t figured out why.

Please Don’t Give Me the Chef’s Greatest Hits

Another thing I see too often is an enormous menu without a real point of view.

A bit of Italian. A few Asian dishes. A burger. Some pasta and the dreaded fusion dishes (more like confusion). The chef’s favourite dishes from three previous hotels. I call it the chef’s greatest hits.

The individual dishes may be perfectly good. But what restaurant are we in?

A menu should belong somewhere. It should make sense for the concept, market and location.

It also needs to represent value. And value for money does not mean cheap.

You can spend a great deal on dinner and walk away thinking it was extraordinary value. You can spend very little and feel ripped off.

For me, it comes back to a constant focus on quality. The question isn’t simply whether the market will accept the price. It’s whether what we’re giving the guest is worth it.

And Don’t Forget the Drinks

This is a pet peeve of mine.

You can have a beautifully conceived restaurant, excellent food and great service—and then the beverage programme feels as though someone remembered it two weeks before opening.

Drinks should tell the same story as the restaurant.

For a restaurant, food leads and beverage follows. For a bar, beverage leads and food follows.

I’ve eaten in Michelin-starred restaurants where almost everything was beautifully executed and then finished the meal with a poor cup of coffee. It drives me crazy.

You’ve paid perfect attention to every detail for two hours. Why get sloppy at the end?

Data Matters Too

Creativity doesn’t mean guessing.

If an existing restaurant tells us its menu isn’t performing, we go back to the first question:

What is the problem we are trying to solve?

We use the Smith–Kasavana approach to menu engineering, looking at popularity and contribution margin. It’s useful. But on its own, I think it falls short.

We also use restaurant revenue management, particularly RevPASH—revenue per available seat hour.

Because we’re not trying to optimise one dish on a spreadsheet. We’re trying to improve the restaurant’s performance. Data tells us what’s happening. It doesn’t necessarily tell us what to do next.

That’s where experience, creativity and a little imagination still matter.

Why Not Just Let the Hotel Team Do It?

I’ve spent most of my career working with hotel operations teams. There are some outstanding Executive Chefs, F&B Directors and General Managers out there.

But being good at operating a restaurant and being good at creating one from scratch are different skill sets.

Concept development brings together market understanding, feasibility, creativity, commercial thinking, operations, design and guest experience.

Most hotel teams are strongest operationally. That’s what they’ve spent their careers learning to do.

Even when a hotel brand has strong F&B expertise, it may not have the bandwidth to develop every concept internally. Most of the larger international hotel brands use specialist consultants to ensure that their owners’ restaurants and bars increase their chances of achieving their goals.

There is another problem.

The operating team often arrives too late.

By the time the Executive Chef or F&B Director joins the pre-opening team, many of the decisions that will determine the restaurant’s success have already been made.

That’s why good restaurant consulting starts much earlier than menu development.

What Does Success Look Like?

Commercial success matters. Owners are investing real money. We need to understand feasibility, ROI, food cost, revenue and the downside if we’re wrong.

But creating something people genuinely want only gives us a fighting chance.

The economics still have to work. What I really want to create are restaurants people will travel for.

Restaurants that become place-makers. Restaurants people talk about.

Good food is the price of entry. The restaurant is more than food.

It’s concept. Story. Location. Design. Menu. Drinks. Service rituals. Music. Atmosphere. People. Connection to the destination.

Which matters most? It depends. There is no formula. That’s what makes this business interesting.

Twenty Years Later

In 2004, I was involved in developing the original concept for what became Spiral at the Westin Philippine Plaza, later Sofitel Philippine Plaza.

The original ambition was straightforward: build the best buffet in Metro Manila.

But during the development process, we realised we were asking the wrong question.

The better question was:

“How do we create a dining experience people would travel for?”

I travelled to Sydney, Seoul and Hong Kong looking at restaurants. Not to copy them.

I wanted to understand why people remembered them. The original idea for Spiral had roughly five authentic food experiences. It eventually became around 21 culinary ateliers across approximately 3,000 square metres. But I don’t think the number of stations was why Spiral worked.

It had Manila Bay sunsets. Theatre. Choice. Abundance. Exploration. Celebration. Social connection. Discovery.

It was an experience. There is another part of the story I still think about.

Early in development, I requested approximately US$60,000 for the concept.

The proposal was rejected. The owners challenged us to think much bigger. The eventual investment grew to approximately US$2 million.

The lesson wasn’t that spending more money produces a better restaurant. It doesn’t.

The lesson was to ask a better question.

Not simply: “What does this cost?”

But: “What value could this create?”

Nearly twenty years later, people still ask me when Spiral is going to reopen.

A few weeks ago, a potential client with a hotel still at feasibility stage asked 3AM to study whether they should create what they called a “Spiral 2.0.”

That’s remarkable (and I use the literal definition, “worth talking about”). Twenty years later people are still talking about the concept.

So, What Does a Menu Development Consultant Actually Do?

Our job is to improve the odds.

Restaurants are risky. No food consultant , chef or operator can guarantee success.

But we can ask better questions before the owner commits capital. Test the market before designing the concept. Get the concept right before designing the space. Use data instead of opinion where data exists. And think about the downside as seriously as the upside.

I think about restaurant development probabilistically. You can’t eliminate risk. But you can structure the bet better.

Heads, we win. Tails, we don’t lose too much.

Menu development is part of that. An important part. But only part of a bigger picture.

Because ultimately, we’re not trying to create a menu.

We’re trying to create restaurants and bars that are REMARKABLE.

About the Author

Planning a Hotel Project?

Whether you’re developing a new hotel or repositioning an existing one, the decisions you make today will shape your returns for decades.

If you’d like an independent owner’s perspective before you commit capital, contact 3AM Hospitality Consulting to start the conversation.

www.3am.com.ph

Disclaimer

This article shares general hospitality perspectives. The appropriate brand and operating model depends on each hotel's market, ownership objectives, and circumstances.

Hotel Management Company or Owner-Operated Hotel?

Wed, 16 Sep 2026 01:42:19 GMT

Issue 06 | September 2026

A periodic publication by 3AM Hospitality Consultants.

What owners considering an independent hotel need to understand about brands, operations, and competing for guests.

One of the misconceptions I encounter with hotel owners is that staying in hotels prepares you to operate one.

It is understandable. You have travelled, stayed in good properties, and developed strong opinions about beds, breakfast, service, and design. You know what you like. You may even know exactly what you would do differently.

Then you must deliver it every day.

Take cleaning a room. Most people think they understand it because they clean their own bedroom. In a hotel, the expectation is that the room should feel as though nobody has ever slept in it before.

Someone has to establish that standard, provide the right equipment, train the team, allow enough time, and inspect the result. The same applies to every room, including when the hotel is full and two staff members have called in sick.

The guest sees a clean room. The owner is responsible for the operation that makes it possible.

That gap between experiencing a hotel and delivering one is where this conversation should begin — and where an independent hotel consultant's work actually starts.

Hotel Operator vs. Hotel Management Company

"Hotel operator" and "hotel management company" are often used interchangeably. A management company can be the operator, so treating them as opposing choices can cause confusion.

The distinction I want to discuss is between a brand-managed hote l and an independent, owner-operated hotel.

In a brand-managed hotel, the owner appoints the brand company to operate the property under a management agreement. During my time at Starwood Hotels & Resorts, I experienced this model firsthand.

Starwood offered both managed and franchised arrangements. A hotel carrying one of its brands was therefore not necessarily operated by Starwood itself. The name above the door does not, by itself, identify who runs the hotel.

In an independent, owner-operated hotel, the owner operates through their own general manager and leadership team, under a brand they own. That brand may already exist, or they may develop it specifically for the property.

"Independent" describes the brand position. "Owner-operated" describes who runs the business. An independent hotel can also appoint an external management company.

These are two selected models, rather than the only choices available. This article is primarily for owners leaning toward independence and operating through their own team.

What Are You Buying From a Brand?

When owners consider a brand-managed hotel, they are often looking for recognition, distribution, loyalty business, established systems, and someone to take day-to-day responsibility.

My time at Starwood gave me a real appreciation for those capabilities. I valued Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG), the central marketing delivery, and the support behind the brands. I also appreciated the emphasis on innovation.

That experience informs how I advise owners today. An owner choosing independence needs a credible plan for attracting guests, earning their loyalty, and supporting the hotel team. Those responsibilities do not disappear simply because you choose your own brand.

Distribution and loyalty benefits can also be available through franchise arrangements. Owners should assess brand affiliation and management responsibility separately, even when one proposal packages them together.

During a difficult market, the reach of an international distribution network and loyalty programme may become particularly important. I would look closely at that advantage for a hotel dependent on international demand.

I would make a different assessment for a property whose business is largely domestic, particularly where the location already gives it a strong reason to be chosen.

The trade-off is that the owner joins a structure. There will be requirements, costs, and decisions they cannot approach entirely on their own terms. The extent depends on the agreements.

Some owners are comfortable with this. Others discover that they want more say over specifications, suppliers, the guest experience, or where marketing money is spent.

Neither preference settles the business case. But an owner who is fundamentally uncomfortable with the brand's structure is unlikely to become more comfortable once the hotel is operating.

Independence offers another route. It also brings a steep learning curve if the owner does not have experienced support.

Why Should a Guest Choose Your Hotel?

This is the question I want an owner to answer before we get too far into the details:

Given a choice, why should a guest stay with you?

Then I would ask a harder version:

If an international brand opens next door, why would that guest still choose you?

Your answer needs to explain what the guest values and what your hotel can consistently deliver.

One opportunity for an independent hotel is to help guests leave with a different perspective on the place they have visited.

That might mean a local market visit, eating where residents eat, a private workshop, discovering a local craft brand, or finding a hidden bar. It requires people who can plan around the guest's interests and recognize the difference between a worthwhile experience and a tourist trap.

This is the question I want an owner to answer before we get too far into the details:

Given a choice, why should a guest stay with you?

Then I would ask a harder version:

If an international brand opens next door, why would that guest still choose you?

Your answer needs to explain what the guest values and what your hotel can consistently deliver.

One opportunity for an independent hotel is to help guests leave with a different perspective on the place they have visited.

International brands can do local experiences well. Independence gives owners greater discretion to make their own interpretation of the destination central to the hotel.

The advantage becomes stronger when it rests on local relationships and a team that knows how to use them. A competitor can reproduce a list of recommendations. The judgment behind a well-planned afternoon is harder to reproduce.

Still, a welcome drink or a curated itinerary is not, by itself, a moat.

A more durable advantage develops when guests trust the team, return, recommend the property, and choose it even when alternatives are available. The hotel must earn enough from that preference to sustain the experience.

That takes time and consistent execution. It is the kind of competitive protection I want owners to work toward.

International brands can do local experiences well. Independence gives owners greater discretion to make their own interpretation of the destination central to the hotel.

Still, a welcome drink or a curated itinerary is not, by itself, a moat.

That takes time and consistent execution. It is the kind of competitive protection I want owners to work toward.

Freedom Still Needs Standards

Occasionally, an owner's frustration with a brand comes down to a specification they cannot see the value in.

Bedding is a useful example. For a property in a warm Asian destination, I would question whether a down-feather duvet is the most appropriate choice, taking account of the room environment and guest expectations. We might specify a lighter duvet suited to tropical conditions instead.

The question is whether the bed delivers the comfort the hotel has promised, with a specification suited to its setting.

I take the same approach to other standards. What does this choice contribute to the guest experience? What does it cost to provide and maintain? Can the team deliver it properly?

Those questions help an owner spend deliberately. They do not remove the need for quality.

Once you have decided what the experience should be, you have to make it teachable. Standards, manuals, job descriptions, and training give the team a common understanding of what is expected.

Then you audit the experience.

If there is a gap, the general manager and leadership team must correct it. Advisors can help identify the problem and recommend an approach, but the hotel's leaders remain responsible for delivery.

The owner must also allow the general manager to manage. If agreed standards and budgets are repeatedly overturned, the team cannot be held accountable for the result.

Owner control works best when decision rights are clear. Constant intervention can undermine the very

What This Looks Like at Alino

At Alino Hotel in Quezon City, the idea of Alagang Filipino gives direction to the experience.

The brand architecture expresses a promise of "Care in Every Detail," grounded in "The Basics, Done Well." That gives us a useful test for decisions: how will the guest actually feel the care?

The arrival experience provides a simple answer.

Guests receive a warm Filipino welcome, a curated welcome drink, and nostalgic local sweet treats. The team shares the story behind the local art. This is already in place at the hotel.

The welcome introduces something of the Philippines through taste, conversation, and the surroundings. It gives the team a way to express the brand from the beginning of the stay.

The development work has extended into pre-opening, amenities, curated local tours, the art programme, restaurant menus, cocktails, coffee, and F&B training. Behind those experiences are manuals, job descriptions, and operating standards.

Owners often see the welcome drink or the menu. There is considerably more work involved in making those choices fit together and preparing people to deliver them.

Alino illustrates how a brand idea becomes an operating brief. The ongoing test is whether guests value the experience enough to return and recommend the hotel.

You Also Have to Bring In the Business

An independent hotel needs a clear approach to distribution.

Build a website that tells guests why they should stay and makes it easy to book. Support it with search engine optimization and paid search where appropriate. Work with online travel agencies and travel partners, while developing a strategy to grow direct business.

The right balance will vary by hotel.

I look at revenue per available room, or RevPAR, and the Revenue Generation Index, or RGI, which compares the hotel's RevPAR with its competitive set. I also look at the cost per channel. Direct business has a cost, just as OTA business does.

Owners do not need to become specialists in every commercial metric, but they do need to know whether the strategy is producing worthwhile business. Revenue measures need to be considered alongside acquisition costs and overall profitability.

This is also where brand affiliation deserves an honest assessment. An established network may provide access to demand that would take an independent hotel time and money to develop. How valuable that access is depends on the property, its market, and its guests.

A brand's reach is an advantage to evaluate. It should not become an assumption that a weak location or an unclear product will somehow work.

Make Sure the Hotel Can Withstand Disappointment

An opening budget is only part of the commitment.

Before proceeding, ask what happens if demand is weaker than expected. Can the owner fund a slower start while maintaining the standards that give guests a reason to return?

A hotel that only works under optimistic assumptions needs more thought.

The same question applies to an existing property planning a repositioning. Changes take money and management attention, and the expected business may take time to arrive.

There is a dangerous cycle here: revenue disappoints, the owner cuts the resources needed to deliver the experience, and the hotel becomes less compelling to guests.

Independence should therefore be assessed against both the opportunity and the owner's capacity to absorb setbacks. Enthusiasm for the concept cannot substitute for that assessment.

Know What You Need Help With

For a new hotel, the greatest opportunity is to address these questions early.

The experience you intend to deliver will affect layouts, equipment, staffing, systems, and costs. Once those decisions are poured into concrete, some become expensive to change.

For an existing hotel, start with what is actually happening. Why do guests book? What do they value? Where does the experience fall short? What is the team capable of delivering, and what needs to change?

In either case, owners should be honest about the expertise they already have.

You may understand the investment and have a strong vision for the property. You still need people who can translate that vision into a functioning hotel, prepare the team, and recognize problems before they become established habits.

When appointing a management company or an advisor, understand what they are paid to do, which decisions they control, and how their work will be assessed. Responsibility should be explicit.

The opportunity in independence is substantial: a brand that belongs to you, an experience shaped around your guests, and the flexibility to make decisions for your own property.

But the freedom only becomes valuable when the hotel delivers.

Where 3AM Comes In

At 3AM, we help owners assess whether independence fits their property and their own way of working. Where it does, we help develop the brand experience and the operating capability to deliver it.

Our role can include brand and experience development, pre-opening, operating standards, training, and ongoing advisory oversight. The general manager and leadership team run the hotel.

The aim is a hotel with a clear reason to be chosen, supported by people who can deliver on that reason every day.

Frequently Asked Questions

About the Author

Paolo Campillo is the Managing Partner of 3AM Hospitality Consulting , an independent, owner-side hotel consultant and hospitality advisory firm in the Philippines. His experience includes working with Starwood Hotels & Resorts. He advises hotel owners and developers on brand experience, development, pre-opening, and operational performance, helping translate their vision into hotels with a clear identity and consistent guest experience.

Is Your Hotel Underperforming?

Before committing further capital—or replacing another senior executive—an independent diagnostic can establish whether the hotel primarily needs renovation, repositioning or an operational reset.

For an independent owner-side perspective, contact 3AM Hospitality Consulting .

www.3am.com.ph

Disclaimer

This article shares general hospitality perspectives. The appropriate brand and operating model depends on each hotel's market, ownership objectives, and circumstances.

Don't Design a Hotel Until You Know Why It Deserves to Exist

Mon, 14 Sep 2026 03:28:37 GMT

Issue 05 | September 2026

A periodic publication by 3AM Hospitality Consultants.

Thoughts from HPC 2026 on why great hotels begin with better questions.

A recent panel discussion at the Hospitality Philippines Conference (HPC) 2026 got me thinking about a question I have been asking for much of my career as a hospitality consultant. As I listened to architects, designers, branding specialists and operators share their perspectives, I was reminded of something I have come to believe after more than thirty years in hospitality.

Why does this hotel deserve to exist?

Many of the biggest successes—and many of the biggest mistakes—are set in motion long before the first guest arrives.

In my experience, they happen before the first sketch is drawn, before a budget is approved and before construction begins. They happen when the team decides what kind of hotel it wants to create and, more importantly, why it deserves to exist.

The Questions Every Hotel Consultant Should Ask First

Before anyone starts drawing, I ask two questions.

Why would I stay here?

And if an international branded hotel opened next door tomorrow, would guests still choose us?

If we cannot answer those two questions, we have not defined why the hotel deserves to exist.

Why a Feasibility Study Is More Than Numbers

Over the years, I have come to see a feasibility study as much more than numbers on a spreadsheet. It is where the owner's vision meets market reality , and where the project's original intent begins to take shape. Get that right, and the conversations about architecture, interiors, brand and operations become much easier because everyone is working towards the same guest experience — which is exactly why owners bring in an independent hotel advisory partner before the design stage, not after it.

The Spiral Story: From Best Buffet to Remarkable Dining Experience

One of the biggest lessons of my career came when we created Spiral.

The original brief was to build the best buffet restaurant in Metro Manila. It was an ambitious objective, but at some point we realised we were asking the wrong question. We stopped asking, "How do we build

the best buffet?" and started asking, "How do we create a dining experience people would travel for?"

That question took me to Sydney, Seoul and Hong Kong—not to copy restaurants, but to understand what

made them remarkable. We combined those lessons into something novel for Manila.

Nearly twenty years later, when Spiral closed, people were still talking about it. That was when I realised we had created something remarkable.

Remarkable means worth talking about.That's what we built.

What 1,400 Guests Arriving at Once Taught Us About Hotel Design

Another project reinforced a very different lesson.

I was reviewing the plans for a 1,400-room hotel. The design looked impressive, but there was no dedicated luggage storage and only four generic check-in counters.

Instead of debating the design, we asked a simple question.

What happens when hundreds of guests arrive at the same time?

We calculated the arrival volumes, average check-in times and queue lengths.

The numbers told us exactly what the guest experience was going to be.

Beautiful architecture means very little if a guest's first experience is standing in a queue.

Construction had already begun, but the owner immediately instructed a major redesign of the arrival experience.

That encounter reminded me that guests do not experience architecture, interiors, engineering and operations separately. They experience one hotel. Great hotels are created when every discipline works towards the same guest experience.

Every Dollar Has a Job

The same thinking applies when owners ask about budgets.

I often tell owners that every dollar has a job.

The objective is not to spend less. It is to spend intentionally.

Early in my career, I proposed a US$60,000 budget for what became Spiral. The owners challenged me because they were not looking for another buffet. They wanted to create a destination dining experience.

The investment eventually grew to around US$2 million.

The real lesson was not the budget. It was the question.

We stopped asking, "What does this cost?" and started asking, " What value will this create over the next twenty years?"

I would never value-engineer the reason guests choose your hotel. Those are not costs. They are

investments.

Why Hotels Become Ordinary — and How to Prevent It

Looking back over the discussion at HPC 2026, I realised that these stories point to the same conclusion.

Projects rarely become ordinary because of one bad decision. More often, they become ordinary through a hundred small compromises. Each one seems reasonable on its own, but together they dilute the original intent.

Whenever that happens, I come back to one simple question. Why would I stay here?

If I cannot answer that with confidence, we are probably making the wrong decisions.

Because in the end, hospitality has never been about designing buildings.

Hospitality is the intentional design of the human experience.

Frequently Asked Questions

About the Author

Paolo Campillo is the Managing Partner of 3AM Hospitality Consulting , an independent hotel consultant and hospitality advisory firm based in the Philippines. With more than 30 years of international hospitality experience, he has led luxury hotel openings, repositioning projects and operational

transformations across Asia. His work focuses on helping owners create hotels that deliver memorable guest experiences, stronger commercial performance and long-term asset value.

Is Your Hotel Underperforming?

For an independent owner-side perspective, contact 3AM Hospitality Consulting .

www.3am.com.ph

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this article are my own and are based on personal experience in hospitality development and operations. Examples have been simplified for clarity, and some project details have been generalised or omitted to respect client confidentiality. This article is intended to encourage discussion and should not be construed as project-specific professional advice.

Renovate, Reposition or Reset?

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 07:16:32 GMT

Issue 04 | August 2026

A periodic publication by 3AM Hospitality Consultants.

I once joined a newly opened hotel as its fourth General Manager—in its third month of operation.

The entire executive committee had already been replaced.

The owner was determined to offer the lowest room rate in the hotel’s star category. Although it was the newest hotel in the market, price quickly became its defining feature. The market decided that the hotel was cheap, and we began attracting the clientele that came with that perception.

But price was not the original problem.

The hotel had opened with more rooms than the location could absorb. During development, the management company had recommended less than half the inventory eventually built.

The owner was a visionary. He saw what the location could become and built for the market he believed would eventually emerge. In many ways, he was right.

The problem was timing.

The hotel opened before demand had caught up with the scale of the investment. A visionary can be right about the destination and still underestimate the cost of arriving too early.

Where possible, preserve the option to expand after demand proves itself rather than committing the entire investment to the forecast.

When the expected demand failed to appear immediately, the natural response was to lower the price. When that did not solve the problem, management was changed.

This happens more often than owners may care to admit.

When a hotel misses its numbers, the first instruction is often to reduce rates. The second is to replace the Director of Sales—or, in this case, almost the entire leadership team.

Sometimes the people are the problem. But changing the people cannot correct an investment assumption, create demand that does not yet exist or remove rooms that have already been built.

Discounting Was Becoming the Positioning

My first priority was to stop the promotional rate from defining the hotel.

I did not eliminate discounting. We still needed tactical promotions while the location matured. But I negotiated a cap on the number of promotional room nights.

This created room to build a proper business.

We focused first on dependable base business. Then we pursued higher-yielding segments and tried to steal the cream from our competitors—not simply fill more rooms at any price.

We placed greater emphasis on the club floor, direct digital demand and the guests and accounts that could become part of the hotel’s future. Food and beverage brought people into the property and helped counter the perception that a low room rate meant a low-quality hotel. Weddings and MICE generated guestrooms, food and beverage revenue and greater visibility.

Gradually, the business mix improved. RevPAR increased. Profit followed.

And profits, inevitably, hide a lot of sins.

We eventually reached the targeted numbers. Operationally, the turnaround worked. But improved performance did not change the original scale, timing or financing of the investment.

A good management team can improve earning power and reduce the damage. It cannot retrospectively make those original decisions optimal.

Even exceptional management has limited room to manoeuvre when the underlying economics are unsound. A sound business, by contrast, can often withstand merely competent management.

Operational success and investment success are related. They are not the same.

Some Problems Could Be Managed Away. Others Could Not.

The commercial problems were only part of the story.

The hotel also had ordinary opening defects and more serious problems involving air-conditioning, plumbing and fire-and-life-safety systems.

Some could be resolved by our maintenance team through persistent defect rectification, better commissioning and tighter preventive maintenance. Others required additional capital.

We therefore worked on two fronts.

Commercially, we rebuilt the business mix and stopped the lowest rate from becoming the hotel’s identity.

Operationally, we fixed what the team could and made the case for capital where the building itself required intervention.

Some mistakes were managed away. Some were paid for twice—once during construction and again through corrective capital expenditure. Building too many rooms for an immature location could not be reversed at any sensible cost. That problem needed time.

This experience shaped how I now look at underperforming hotels.

Before replacing another executive, launching another promotion or approving a renovation, an owner needs to answer two simple questions:

What is the problem?
Where is the problem?

Start With the Business, Not the Prescription

For an existing hotel, I begin with last year’s performance and the growth assumed in the current business plan.

Then I look at the business by market segment.

Room nights come first. Which segments are ahead, and which are behind?

Has the hotel lost demand, or has the business shifted into a different segment?

Then I look at average rate. Are we gaining volume only because we have sacrificed price?

Finally, I look at room revenue to understand the combined effect.

RevPAR remains a useful measure for the hotel as a whole, but it does not tell us where the underlying problem sits. The segment analysis does.

This is not merely an exercise in explaining a budget variance. The budget itself may be wrong. Last year may also be the wrong reference point if the market or competitive environment has changed.

The purpose is not to defend the plan. It is to understand the business.

Only then can we decide whether the hotel needs to renovate, reposition or reset.

Reset: Improve the Promise and the Machinery Behind It

A reset is usually the right starting point when the market opportunity still exists and the physical hotel remains broadly competitive, but the operation is not capturing that opportunity.

The problem may lie in pricing, sales discipline, leadership, service consistency, maintenance, productivity or the quality of execution.

At another hotel, we relaunched the property under refreshed branding and clarified what it should represent. But the reset went far beyond changing its visual identity.

The central idea was discovery: helping guests experience the destination from a new perspective.

We translated that idea into coffee, art, scent, sound, sleep and welcome experiences that allowed guests to see the destination differently. The brand was no longer confined to a logo or marketing language. It became part of the stay.

At the same time, we improved the machinery behind the experience. Productivity increased, labour, energy and food costs were reduced, and guest engagement improved.

The guest-facing relaunch and operational improvements had to happen together. A new promise without better delivery would have been cosmetic. Better efficiency without a more compelling experience would have produced savings but little additional reason to choose the hotel.

A reset works when the promise to the guest and the machinery behind it improve at the same time.

This does not mean protecting weak leadership. If the evidence shows that the General Manager or Director of Sales cannot deliver, a change may be necessary.

But the change should follow the diagnosis.

The new person should not inherit the same unrealistic plan, uncontrolled discounting and structural problems—and then be blamed when the result remains unchanged.

Reposition: Build on a Natural Advantage

A hotel may need to reposition when the market it was designed to serve no longer exists in sufficient depth—or when a better opportunity has been demonstrated.

But repositioning can destroy value when an owner abandons a naturally advantaged market in pursuit of a segment that appears more attractive.

One hotel I managed in Singapore had a location that made it a natural choice for travellers from one of the city’s major overseas source markets. The surrounding neighbourhood was familiar to them, shopping was convenient, and the hotel offered reasonable access to the airport and the rest of the city.

Wholesale travellers from that market represented a substantial share of the hotel’s business.

The owner wanted to replace some of this volume with airline crew. The instinct was understandable. Crew business appeared to offer dependable, recurring room nights.

There was one significant problem: without renovated guestrooms, the crews would not stay.

The hotel was already performing well, yet it was considering sacrificing proven demand to pursue a segment the existing product could not satisfy.

In hindsight, the better decision before renovation would have been to protect the hotel’s naturally advantaged business and test its pricing power.

Could we increase rates while retaining most of the demand? How much volume would we lose? Would the higher rate more than compensate for the lost room nights?

That evidence would have told us whether the existing business was more valuable than it appeared.

When a hotel is already performing well, test whether you can charge more before deciding that you need different guests.

The wider investment outcome confirmed the strength of that natural advantage. Held for more than 40 years, the hotel became an important source of cash for the company and repaid the original investment many times over. After renovation and repositioning, an exceptional offer eventually justified its sale.

The lesson is not that the hotel should never have evolved. It is that evolution should build on the natural advantage that made the asset valuable in the first place.

New segments should be developed incrementally. Proven business should not be displaced until replacement demand has been validated and the hotel can deliver the product those guests expect.

A repositioning should enhance a naturally advantaged business—not discard the source of its success.

Renovate: Change Behaviour, Not Merely Appearance

Renovation becomes necessary when the physical product is preventing the hotel from satisfying guests, competing effectively or achieving the rate required by its positioning.

But a renovation should do more than make a space look newer.

At another hotel, the owner’s favourite outlet was a nostalgic bar with a loyal ballroom-dancing clientele. It had atmosphere, regular customers and a clear identity.

On the surface, it appeared successful.

But the guests were passionate about dancing, not drinking. Many purchased only the minimum required for entry and spent little beyond that.

The concept was attracting exactly the audience it had been designed for. The problem was that it also encouraged spending behaviour that could not support the economics of the outlet.

I persuaded the owner to renovate it as a contemporary craft-cocktail bar built around local ingredients and cocktails with stories.

The renovation changed more than the appearance. It broadened the potential clientele and gave guests more reasons to visit, explore and spend.

Average spend and customer traffic increased. The outlet moved from break-even to healthy profitability, strengthened its reputation and became a destination for the surrounding neighbourhood.

A repositioning should enhance a naturally advantaged business—not discard the source of its success.

Guest feedback should guide renovation decisions, but that does not mean reacting to whoever complains the loudest.

Hotels already collect large amounts of guest feedback. The opportunity is to determine which parts of the experience have the greatest influence on overall satisfaction—and connect them, where possible, with commercial performance.

If room condition, bathrooms, noise or unreliable air-conditioning consistently drive dissatisfaction, renovation may be justified.

If cleanliness, responsiveness or service consistency has the greater impact, renovating the guestrooms may be an expensive way of avoiding an operational problem.

Do not renovate what guests merely mention. Fix what actually drives dissatisfaction—and determine whether correcting it will improve pricing power, demand, profitability or long-term asset value.

The Answer Is Often More Than One

Renovate, reposition and reset are not mutually exclusive.

A reset may reveal the need for targeted capital. Renovation may enable repositioning. Repositioning will fail if operations cannot deliver the new promise.

Context matters.

The right answer depends on the market, competitive set, lifecycle of the hotel, ownership objectives, available capital and expected return from each intervention.

My normal sequence is to test the reset first when meaningful improvement can be achieved through management, pricing, service or operating discipline.

Reposition when the intended market cannot support the hotel or a better opportunity has been demonstrated.

Renovate when the physical product prevents the chosen strategy from succeeding.

But this is a starting point, not a rigid formula.

The principle is simpler:

Diagnose before prescribing.

Begin with the intervention most likely to produce a durable improvement in earning power relative to the time, capital and risk involved.

The Cheapest Time to Diagnose

The cheapest time to diagnose a hotel is before the capital becomes irreversible.

Looking back, the most valuable intervention at the first hotel would have happened before construction.

The owner should have commissioned a genuinely independent feasibility study and required the investment assumptions—including his own—to survive serious challenge before proceeding. The management company’s commercial advice should also have been treated as an important operational reality check.

Gut feel has value. Many great hotels begin with an owner seeing an opportunity that spreadsheets cannot fully capture.

But gut feel should begin the idea. It should not approve the investment on its own.

A feasibility study should test whether the market can support the proposed number of rooms, positioning, rates, business mix and expected ramp-up—and whether the likely return justifies the capital at risk.

The financial model may be mathematically correct while the assumptions inside it remain commercially unrealistic.

That is why the study should be challenged by an experienced hotelier who understands what the operation would have to deliver for those numbers to become real.

A study should inform judgment, not replace it. Its purpose is to make the investment case withstand evidence, contrary views and realistic downside scenarios before the capital is committed.

Once the hotel has been built, management can improve earning power. Additional capital can repair parts of the building. Time may allow the market to catch up.

None of these can cheaply reverse an investment conceived at the wrong scale, built at the wrong time or financed without sufficient room for error.

When a hotel underperforms, owners understandably feel pressure to act. Reducing rates, changing management or approving a renovation all look decisive.

Any of them may be correct.

But the most expensive response to hotel underperformance is solving the wrong problem well.

About the Author

Paolo Campillo is Managing Partner of 3AM Hospitality Consulting , providing independent owner-side advisory for hotels, resorts and mixed-use developments.

Drawing on more than 30 years of operating experience across Asia, he helps owners create and improve hospitality assets that work operationally, commercially and over time.

Is Your Hotel Underperforming?

For an independent owner-side perspective, contact 3AM Hospitality Consulting.

www.3am.com.ph

Disclaimer

This article is provided for general educational purposes. Every hotel and capital decision should be evaluated according to its particular market, objectives, assumptions and risks.

Every Dollar You Spend Has A Job

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 07:14:31 GMT

Issue 03 | August 2026

A periodic publication by 3AM Hospitality Consultants.

A Simple Way to Think About Hotel Ownership

Every hotel is built one decision at a time.

A larger guest room.

An additional restaurant.

A bigger spa.

A more impressive lobby.

A famous starchitect.

Individually, each decision seems small.

Together, they determine whether every dollar earns its keep.

Over the years, I've found myself coming back to one simple question:

What value is this dollar expected to create?

Some investments help you command a higher room rate.

Some create memorable guest experiences.

Some reduce operating costs.

Some strengthen the business for decades.

If you can't clearly explain the value a dollar is expected to create, it probably shouldn't be spent.

And once you've made the investment, ask another question:

Is it earning its keep—or should it be fired?

I've found this simple way of thinking leads to better decisions than asking whether something is expensive or inexpensive.

The real question isn't what something costs.

It's whether it creates enough value to justify the investment.

Five Stars Don't Guarantee Returns

One of the biggest misconceptions in hospitality is that a five-star hotel—or a well-known international brand—is automatically a better investment.

It isn't.

A respected brand can attract guests.

A five-star rating can win awards.

Neither guarantees a successful investment.

I've seen beautifully branded hotels struggle because they cost too much to build.

I've also seen independent hotels quietly outperform because every investment decision had a clear purpose.

Guests don't pay for your star rating.

They pay for the experience you consistently deliver.

Think Like an Owner

Developers often ask: "How much will this cost?"

Owners ask: "Will this investment still be creating value twenty years from now?"

Those are very different questions.

The first focuses on opening day. The second focuses on stewardship.

At 3AM, we believe hotels should be designed for long-term ownership, not simply for a successful opening.

Before You Spend More

One lesson I've learned is that the biggest mistakes rarely come from one large decision.

They usually come from dozens of small ones.

"While we're at it..."

A slightly larger lobby.

An additional restaurant.

A more elaborate arrival experience.

A famous starchitect.

Individually, each decision seems reasonable.

Together, they can quietly erode the economics of a project.

Whenever that happens, I come back to the same question.

Will guests value this enough to pay for it?

If the answer is yes, spend confidently.

If the answer is no, don't confuse cost with value.

The goal isn't to spend less.

The goal isn't to spend more.

The goal is to spend wisely.

Your Hotel Doesn't Know What It Cost

Spending more doesn't automatically create more value.

Your guests don't know what your marble flooring cost.

They don't know what you paid for the façade.

They don't know whether the building was designed by a starchitect.

Guests don't remember what you spent. They remember how you made them feel. That's what gives them a reason to come back—and a reason to pay more.

I've never met an owner who regretted spending money that guests genuinely valued.

I've met plenty who regretted spending money that guests never noticed.

The goal isn't to build the most expensive hotel.

It's to build the hotel that creates the greatest long-term value for every dollar invested.

Great Hotels Earn the Right to Charge More

The best hotels don't command higher rates because they were expensive to build.

They command higher rates because guests believe they're worth it.

An unforgettable location.

Thoughtful design.

Warm, genuine service.

Comfortable rooms.

Exceptional food.

Attention to detail.

Memorable experiences.

These are the things that create lasting value.

They're also much harder to copy than expensive finishes.

A Simple Test

Whenever we're reviewing a design, we often ask one simple question.

If we removed this feature, would guests notice—and would they still happily pay the same rate?

If the answer is yes, perhaps it wasn't adding value in the first place.

Not every dollar spent improves the guest experience.

The best owners understand the difference.

Final Thoughts

Every decision in a hotel has a cost.

A larger room.

A bigger lobby.

An additional restaurant.

A premium façade.

The important question isn't whether those things are impressive.

It's whether they make the hotel a better long-term business.

At 3AM, we've learned that great hotel owners aren't afraid to spend millions.

They're afraid of spending even one dollar foolishly.

Because great hotels aren't built by spending more.

They're built by spending wisely.

At 3AM Hospitality, we help hotel owners make better investment decisions before construction begins. Because the most expensive mistakes are usually the ones that are poured into concrete.

About the Author

Paolo Campillo is the Managing Partner of 3AM Hospitality , advising hotel owners and developers on hotel development, operations, and long-term value creation.

His philosophy is simple: make better decisions before they're poured into concrete.

Planning a Hotel Project?

Whether you're developing a new hotel or repositioning an existing one, the decisions you make today will shape your returns for decades.

If you'd like an independent owner's perspective before you commit capital, contact 3AM Hospitality to start the conversation.

www.3am.com.ph

Disclaimer

This article is intended for general educational purposes only and reflects our approach to hotel investment and development. It does not constitute investment, financial, legal, or tax advice. Every hotel project should be evaluated based on its own objectives, assumptions, risks, and circumstances.

The Sea of Sameness

Fri, 24 Jul 2026 06:32:05 GMT

Issue 02 | July 2026

A periodic publication by 3AM Hospitality Consultants.

In the Age of the Algorithm, the Greatest Luxury Is What You Can’t Copy and Paste

I was sitting in a beautifully designed third-wave coffee shop, sipping an espresso, when someone at the next table ordered an iced oat milk latte.

I looked around.

Polished concrete. Light timber. Hanging plants. Ceramic cups. Soft jazz. MacBooks open on almost every table.

It was nice.

That was the problem.

I couldn’t tell whether I was in Manila or Melbourne.

Somewhere along the way, everything had started to look like everywhere else.

Over the past three decades in hospitality, I’ve been fortunate to work with remarkable owners, brands and destinations across Asia. During that time, I’ve watched our industry become more connected than ever before.

Ideas that once took years to travel now move in seconds.

Ideas spread faster. So do trends. So do expectations.

Hotels borrow from hotels. Restaurants borrow from restaurants. Coffee shops borrow from coffee shops. Before long, what was once distinctive becomes the new bland.

Commercially, it makes perfect sense.

Emotionally, something gets lost.

For hotel owners, familiarity often feels like the safer choice.

A proven concept is easier to explain to investors, easier to benchmark and easier to finance. Consultants can point to comparable properties. Designers can show that something similar has already worked. Operators can reassure everyone that guests know what to expect.

No one gets blamed for choosing the familiar.

The problem is that all those safe decisions add up. What emerges may be polished and perfectly Instagram-worthy, but it still feels much like every other hotel.

Cookie-cutter hotels are rarely created by a lack of talent. They are created by an accumulation of rational, defensible decisions.

A lobby inspired by one successful hotel. A restaurant concept borrowed from another. A guest journey pieced together from places the owner has visited.

Nothing is necessarily wrong with any individual decision.

But the finished hotel could be almost anywhere.

And if it could be anywhere, guests have little reason to choose it over somewhere else— except price, points or convenience.

Algorithms accelerate this sameness. They learn from what people have already clicked, liked, booked and shared. They reward recognisable patterns because familiarity reduces uncertainty.

What succeeds is noticed. What is noticed is repeated. What is repeated becomes a formula.

But what performs well on a screen does not always create meaning in person.

A hotel can photograph beautifully, earn excellent reviews and still leave almost nothing behind. Guests may have been perfectly satisfied but struggle to remember anything distinctive about it six months later.

Satisfaction and memory are not the same thing.

I understood this more clearly one morning at Amanjiwo in Central Java.

Before sunrise, my butler quietly woke me with a hot espresso and a warm croissant. While most guests were still asleep, we drove to Borobudur before the gates opened.

We climbed in near silence as the first light broke over the ancient temple.

On the way down, he shared stories no guidebook could have told. We returned through the surrounding villages as the landscape slowly came to life.

As we drove back, it struck me that although others could follow the same itinerary, no one would experience that precise combination of place, people, timing and feeling in quite the same way.

That morning was mine.

Its value did not come from extravagance alone. It came from how completely the experience belonged to where it happened.

The hotel did not compete with the destination.

It helped me experience the destination more deeply.

That distinction matters.

Distinctiveness does not mean novelty for novelty’s sake. A hotel does not become original simply by being unusual.

Nor does it become authentic by adding local artwork, regional ingredients and a few decorative references to culture after the concept has already been imported from somewhere else.

That may make a hotel look local.

It does not necessarily make it belong.

A hotel that truly belongs becomes part of the fabric of its community. It draws local people, culture and experiences into the stay, allowing guests to discover the destination in a way that feels personal to them.

The hotel becomes more than a place to stay. It becomes the lens through which the guest connects with the destination.

It feels inseparable from its surroundings—not like an international concept wearing a local costume.

This changes the question owners and developers should ask:

What could this hotel help a guest experience here that could not happen anywhere else?

The objective is not to be different for the sake of it. It is to create something so distinct that

comparing it with another hotel becomes slightly absurd.

Consistency still matters.

Guests should never have to gamble on cleanliness, safety, competence or care. Owners need reliable systems. Associates need clear expectations. Hotels need a recognisable philosophy.

But consistency does not require replication.

Great hotels do not need to standardise experiences. They need to standardise the principles behind them.

The principle might be a thoughtful arrival. The expression should depend on the property.

The principle might be genuine recognition. The gesture should depend on the guest.

The principle might be a sense of place. The experience should grow from what that particular place can offer.

This is more demanding than repeating a successful formula. It requires every hotel to interpret the same philosophy rather than reproduce the same answer.

Capella Bangkok showed me what this can achieve.

What stayed with me was not simply the suite or the amenities. The hotel understood how I wanted to experience Bangkok and interpreted the city around my interests and curiosity.

I left wanting to visit every Capella in the world.

Not because I expected each hotel to feel like Capella Bangkok. Quite the opposite. I wanted to discover how the same philosophy of hospitality might express itself somewhere entirely different.

That is the commercial power of standardising principles rather than experiences. Guests come to trust the philosophy without already knowing what each hotel will feel like. Technology can make hotels easier to find, book and navigate. It can eliminate queues, remember preferences and automate routine transactions. Used well, it returns time to guests and associates.

But efficiency is not the purpose of hospitality.

Repeating information, waiting unnecessarily or navigating a confusing process adds nothing to the experience. Yet other moments—a thoughtful welcome, being shown to your room or a conversation that reveals something about the destination—deserve time.

Remove friction where it creates anxiety.

Preserve ritual where it creates meaning.

A completely frictionless hotel may be operationally impressive but emotionally bankrupt.

When hotels compete mainly through specifications, guests compare them through specifications: room size, facilities, location, loyalty points and price.

Competitors can renovate. They can add amenities. They can introduce the same technology or discount their rates.

Most functional advantages can eventually be copied.

A meaningful experience is harder to reproduce because it depends on the relationship between place, people, timing and story.

Memory has commercial value. It gives guests a reason to return, a story worth sharing and less reason to choose on price alone.

At its best, it also stirs curiosity: how might I experience another destination through the

same philosophy?

The difficulty for owners is that this value rarely fits neatly into a feasibility study.

A spreadsheet can tell us exactly what a feature costs. It is less helpful in telling us what a memorable experience is worth. The danger is that anything difficult to measure begins to look unimportant.

Guests rarely make that mistake.

Hospitality is the intentional design of the human experience.

In the age of the algorithm, the greatest luxury is what you can’t copy and paste.

About the Author

Paolo Campillo is Managing Partner of 3AM Hospitality Consulting, advising hotel owners and developers on hotel development, operations and long-term value creation.

His philosophy is simple: make better decisions before they are poured into concrete. 

Planning a Hotel Project?

Whether you are developing a new hotel or repositioning an existing one, the decisions made today will shape its performance and returns for decades.

If you would value an independent owner-side perspective before committing capital, contact 3AM Hospitality Consulting to start the conversation.

www.3am.com.ph

Disclaimer

This article is provided for general educational purposes and reflects 3AM Hospitality Consulting’s approach to hotel investment and development. It does not constitute investment, financial, legal or tax advice. Every hotel project should be evaluated acc ording to its objectives, assumptions, risks and circumstances.

3AM Hotel Budget Planning Brief

Thu, 02 Jul 2026 06:25:26 GMT

Issue 01 | July 2026

Economic, Tourism & Market Assumptions for Hotel Owners, Developers & Investors

Prepared by 3AM Hospitality Consultants

Primary Sources: Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), Department of Tourism (DOT), together with other publicly available government and industry information.

3AM Planning Principle

The objective is not to produce the most accurate budget. It is to produce the most resilient one.If your plan only works when everything goes right, it isn’t much of a plan.

As hotel owners and management teams begin preparing operating budgets, business plans and capital expenditure programmes for the coming year, this briefing highlights the economic, tourism and market issues we believe will have the greatest impact on hotel performance over the next 12–18

months.

It is intended to support better planning and better decisions—not to predict the future .

Executive Summary

The operating environment for Philippine hotels is becoming more challenging and requires greater operational excellence and disciplined planning.

Economic growth has slowed, inflation remains above historical averages, interest rates remain elevated and the Philippine peso has weakened. These factors continue to place pressure on operating costs, financing costs and consumer spending.

The outlook for the hospitality sector is more balanced. International tourism continues to recover, although visitor arrivals remain below pre-pandemic levels and the pace of recovery continues to lag several ASEAN destinations. Domestic demand remains resilient but increasingly price sensitive, while labour market conditions have improved.

In this environment, hotel owners should focus less on producing optimistic budgets and more on building resilient business plans that can perform across a range of market conditions.

Planning Assumptions

These represent 3AM Hospitality Consultants’ current planning assumptions and should be reviewed regularly as market conditions change.

3AM Budget Stress Test

Before approving your budget, ask these questions:

Market Outlook

Economy

The Philippine economy continues to grow, although at a slower pace than recent years. Softer household spending, higher borrowing costs and weaker business confidence are expected to create a more competitive operating environment.

Our planning assumption is for continued economic growth at a slower pace than recent years.

Tourism

According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, tourism directly contributed ₱2.27 trillion , or 8.1% of Philippine GDP, in 2025. Tourism industries employed approximately 7.70 million people , representing 15.7% of total national employment.

International visitor arrivals continue to recover but remain below the 8.26 million foreign visitor arrivals recorded in 2019, and the Philippines continues to recover more slowly than several ASEAN destinations.

Future growth is likely to depend on continued improvements in international air connectivity, destination competitiveness, tourism infrastructure and the recovery of key source markets.

Operating Environment

Hotel owners should plan for:

• Greater consumer price sensitivity.

• Continued food and beverage cost inflation.

• Volatile energy and utility costs.

• Elevated financing costs.

• Ongoing payroll pressure.

• Increased competition as new hotel supply enters selected markets.

There are also opportunities to improve performance through stronger revenue management, increased direct bookings, higher productivity and disciplined investment.

Strategic Priorities

For most hotels, we believe the priorities for the coming year should be:

• Protect ADR rather than compete primarily on price.

• Increase direct bookings and reduce distribution costs.

• Invest selectively in projects that improve the guest experience or operating performance.

• Continue investing in people and service quality.

• Preserve financial flexibility.

• Allocate capital where long-term returns are clear and measurable

3AM’s View

2027 is unlikely to reward the best market. It is more likely to reward the best operators.

Hotels waiting for stronger demand to improve performance may be disappointed. Our view is that the businesses most likely to outperform will be those that pursue operational excellence through disciplined revenue management, higher productivity, exceptional guest experience, prudent cost control and thoughtful capital allocation.

Markets will change. Some assumptions will prove correct, while others will not. The objective is not to build a budget that predicts every outcome accurately. It is to build a business that remains resilient when conditions change.

Markets cannot be controlled. Operational excellence can.

That philosophy underpins every recommendation made by 3AM Hospitality Consultants. We believe

better decisions—not better predictions—create better long-term outcomes.

Disclaimer

This briefing reflects the professional judgement of 3AM Hospitality Consultants based on publicly available information believed to be reliable at the time of publication. Economic conditions change, assumptions should be reviewed regularly, and future outcomes may differ from current expectations. This briefing is intended to support planning and decision-making and should not be relied upon as the sole basis for investment, development or business decisions.

Tell me your story..

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:51:52 GMT

Save the towel for the bathroom..

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:49:33 GMT

Service is not about stars

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:37:10 GMT

So what is the real bottom line?

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:27:19 GMT

You are either inspired by or afraid of

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:24:26 GMT

Successful Hotel Brands are all about Emotion

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:12:38 GMT

Building your brand experience one customer at a time

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 14:01:07 GMT

Signs in Most Spaces Are a Comedy of Errors

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 06:46:58 GMT

Same goes for service, it should be invisibly good..

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 06:42:25 GMT

People remember how you made them feel

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 06:29:12 GMT

We are in the Experience Economy

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 06:16:46 GMT

When building your hotel brand, play the long game.. buy and hold!

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 06:07:57 GMT

AI is not the bogeyman

Sat, 06 Dec 2025 06:05:06 GMT

The Fifth Hammer

Sat, 26 Oct 2024 05:41:31 GMT

You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Math was never my strong suit, and I often found myself intimidated by the complexities of numbers and equations. However, I was lucky to have two extraordinary mentors who helped guide me through my math journey. In middle school, there was Mr. Alford, a math whiz who could compute the square root or cube root of any number with a snap of his fingers. His expertise was astounding; it was like having a human calculator in the classroom. Later in high school, Mr. Kayal took over as my mentor. He tackled subjects like algebra, calculus, and trigonometry with a care and patience that ensured all of us could successfully pass our exams. While much of what they taught me has faded from memory, one story still resonates: the legend of Pythagoras and his five hammers .

Legend has it that Pythagoras, a renowned mathematician and philosopher, once encountered a blacksmith's shop where he noticed something intriguing. The sounds from the hammers striking anvils were harmonious—except for one. Pythagoras found that hammers with specific weight ratios created harmony, while the fifth hammer, which didn’t fit this pattern, caused discord.

This story of the five hammers can be seen as a metaphor for the “why we do what we do”?

At 3AM HOTEL CONSULTANTS, our role is to foster harmony and balance within teams, much like how Pythagoras discovered harmony in the sound of weighted hammers. By skilfully balancing diverse skills, personalities, and roles, we ensure that each team member makes a unique contribution. Achieving the right balance of talents leads to exceptional results.

We identify discrepancies and uncover the "fifth hammer"—elements that disrupt the harmonious pattern within an organization, causing discord. These disruptive factors may include inefficient processes, mismatched team roles, or internal conflicts.

We base our decisions on data, much like Pythagoras, who employed ratios and mathematical relationships to comprehend harmony. We utilize data and analytics we instil date driven decision-making processes . By identifying patterns and relationships within data, we optimize operations and enhance outcomes.

We share continuous improvement best practices, as illustrated by the story of the hammers, which emphasizes the importance of understanding and refining processes. We cultivate a culture of continuous improvement and encouraging teams to pursue better processes, to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness.

We adopt a holistic perspective . The harmony in music that Pythagoras studied reflects the concept of a comprehensive approach in management. Rather than concentrating exclusively on individual elements, this approach considers the entire system.

Things they didn't teach in hotel school.

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 05:51:59 GMT

"A collection of things I've learned, mistakes I've made & the stuff they never taught me in hotel school."

by Paolo Campillo

1) Spend at least a few months in Stewarding! You will learn to clean up all sorts of shit, learning to clean up shit will come in handy later.

2) Spend a few months in Housekeeping! Back-breaking work! You will quickly understand the dignity of labour.

3) Spend some time in the Kitchen! You will understand the concept of mise-en-place!

4) Learn the art of kindness your staff today could be your boss tomorrow.

5) Learn to eat humble pie! Practice the “the art of humility” -your staff and your customers are always your best teacher.

6) Learn to smile while you eat a shit sandwich! You will receive loads of if so you might as well enjoy it.

7) Eat in the staff cafeteria as often as you can! And don’t waste time eating alone!

8) MBWA-manage mentor by walking around.

9) Make your associate entrance more exciting than your guest entrance.

10) Help serve/cook breakfast for your guests whenever you can.

11) Help your Housekeeping strip beds whenever you can.

12) Inspect at least 3 guest rooms per week. (adjust for a larger hotel)

13) Reply to all your guest's posts on TripAdvisor.

14) Know what drives your NPS, just as well as what drives your RGI.

15) Running a hotel is not rocket science…follow the KISS principle. (keep it straight & simple)

16) Occasionally go back to lessons 1 or 2 it will keep you grounded. If all else fails you can go back to doing these roles.

17) Learn to do sales calls-you are always selling something.

18) Meditation, mindfulness, marathons, MMA- whatever rocks your boat! Find it, do it. Trust me! Thank me later.

19) Manage your boss, before he manages you!

20) Owner relationship! (repeat this mantra 3 times) It’s easier to replace a GM, than it is to find an new owner.

Don't Go Chasing Unicors

Thu, 29 Aug 2024 05:46:07 GMT

Find diamonds in the rough...

Today everyone is complaining that they cant find talent! Tom Peters one of the greatest business guru's of our generation predicted a war for talent in the early 2000. Here we are 22 years later and the war is really turning nuclear.

At my workplace, our stakeholders want us to find not only the best talent- they want the brightest, with extensive experience in the hotel industry, with proven track records of success and they want them at a rock bottom prices. I often ask myself: Am I searching for a Unicorn?

Finding great talent is like trying to find a unicorn. They are rare, people believe they exist, no one has actually seen one. Maybe they exist. I once believed in Santa!

I am of the opinion we should stop looking for Unicorns and start looking for diamonds.

Diamonds...Everyone has seen one, true they are rare but not as rare as you think. In addition, diamonds are strong, they forged under pressure they are brilliant and timeless. Much easier to find are diamonds in the rough. These gems are hidden in plain sight, no one is looking for them so you can pick them up at a steal, sure they need a bit work to polish up and oh will they shine. Diamonds in the rough are very easy to find. If you look closely, you will see you too were once a diamond in the rough.

Let me start with an easy example, Chef Thomas Keller owner of famous restaurant The French Laundry with 3 Michelin Stars and a 3 month waitlist. Chef Keller started his career as dishwasher! That's right.. definitely diamond in the rough. Surely someone saw something in this steward and mentored him into the legend he is today.

My wife, a reformed hotelier, headed up several customer care centers in Southern Metro Manila in the early cowboy years of the telecom industry in the Philippines. She managed to hire brilliant staff. I asked her how she did this? She told me her recipe was that during the interview she just looked & listened for "shiny, happy people". Well her team members became the most coveted in the company and many went on to manage their own customer care centers. Most have moved on and grown well beyond what she saw in them 20 years ago. Again "shiny, happy people" who shone bright like diamonds.

I once read a story of a certain company using a Brick Test to test potential hires for creativity. They would place a brick in front of a potential candidate and asked them to figure out as many things in a minute they could do with the brick. The successful candidates got over 20 in a single minute. When I tried this test with my leadership team the highest score was 6. (Door stop, Life saving device, bookend, toy, marker, cooking utensil... ).

So I adopted this to the hotel industry, into different social experiments of sorts.

My thesis is this: hire people who have an a innate disposition that closely matches the specific task they will be assigned to do. Our job is to find that predilection, that one thing they would probably do for free.

As hoteliers in search of chefs we often become pre-occupied with the resume we pour over their previous work experience. Where did they work, who was the chef, was the restaurant any good. We spend countless man-hours doing background checks. I often ask a simple question "can the guy cook?" The answer typically is "yes his background check came back with positive reviews". How is that for a non-answer.

How often do we just ask the chef candidate to cook something. Even something as simple as an egg. After all we are searching for some one who can cook well not someone who can write resumes well. This cooking test will tell you in a few minutes all you need to know about a candidate.

When I opened a hotel many years ago we wanted savvy candidates who could immediately engage and charm our guests. So during the interview process we crafted a mini social experiment where front liners had to basically choose and vote off candidates. If candidates could not charm their own colleagues in a few minutes how could we expect them to engage our own guests. Most of those hires had little or no experience in the hotel industry, we planned it that way. We suffered during our first few months; but the end result was a #6 ranking on Tripadvisor in the city at that time. I attribute this primarily because of the quality of the associates we had on-boarded.

I vividly remember when I knew my Executive Housekeeper was a diamond in the rough. After a busy week for her whole team, I told her that it was "ok" with me if she let her team go home early as a reward and she could leave some rooms to clean for tomorrow as the occupancy would allow it. She looked at me in horror and I immediately knew it was "not ok" with her. She replied curtly stating that she would not be able to sleep knowing we had "dirty rooms" left over for the evening. She quickly said 'It's ok sir, my supervisors and I will stay to finish the rooms, no overtime". I walked away sheepishly, but it was a great a-ha moment, I knew from that day onwards, I never had to check on her work again because she took so much pride in "her rooms". Found another diamond...Bling!

So I encourage you to create your own experiments, find your own gems. Look for great people who are passionate about what they do and tailor fit the hotel job to their passion. Instead of quixotic search for experienced unicorns, start looking for diamonds in the rough. There will always be less people looking and there will always be an infinite number of diamonds in the rough.

The gems that I have stumbled on along the way know who they are. They will simply smile and "mentally tip the hat" for the effort in helping them shine. I always tell them I get more satisfaction from their success than mine.

It would also be remiss of me to not to "tip the hat" and pay tribute to the many mentors I have had. Specially those who took the time to polish a lot of the imperfections in my leadership game.

I will end with one more anecdote, one of the happiest days of my career was when I received a call from an old colleague (another diamond in the rough) and he had just been promoted to General Manager for the first time and he wanted to express his gratitude. He just wanted to call to "thank me". I said thank for what, looking back maybe I have a disposition for discovering diamonds? I wish it were the other type of diamonds. We have kept in touch ever since and have shared our highest and our lowest moments with each other. It was memorable because he was the first, there have been more gems since them and will be more diamond discoveries to follow.

I have been in this game for close to 30 years. If you are looking for Unicorns for the hotel industry you wont find them. Start looking for those diamonds in the rough! Let me know how you go.