Before we start to look at the nitty gritty of what happens inside the building, let’s for a moment consider how you are going to manage the process. After all you are not building a retail shed or a domestic block of flats, but a destination to which you hope people will come back to again and again. To achieve your goals in planning your hotel you need to be able to communicate and manage your development team. If you haven’t then we’d better look at some objectives for it and who should be in the team.The starting point is of course that you have done you market research as suggested in part 1. If you haven’t, stop reading this and do it now (Click here to read the article).
Let’s assume that you have progressed as outlined in pt 1. No doubt you have been impressed by some of the hotels you have seen, but equally you will be sure you can do better, so you are moving forward with confidence. You have the support of your bank, your accountant is enthusiastic and you know what star rating and price range you want to operate in. Now you need to find a designer who knows what they are doing and who should, if they are good, be able to save you their fee by knowing their way around the contract market (and no, not a purchasing agency).
I am not talking about the architect (good at the outside and at running a team, great on contracts and knowing everything -they say- but not an interiors specialist), or the builder, contractor, structural engineer, quantity surveyor, services engineer or kitchen specialist. I mean the person who understands the relationship of the internal parts of the hotel and how to make sure that they all contribute to the operational effectiveness and thereby the return to your bottom line.
Continued on page two…
