What does a Hotel Consultant do?

Managing a hotel or hospitality business is not an easy nor a straightforward job, and owners can often benefit from external hotel consulting services offering impartial advice.

A hospitality consultant is usually brought on board for a period of time to help a business improve their performance. A consultant will generally review the current situation and then develop specific solutions and opportunities based on the client’s needs, to develop and improve the business performance.

This can cover identifying ways to increase revenue, improving the marketing, positioning and customer perception of the business, suggesting new performance-based technologies which can improve a whole variety of service elements from personalising the customer journey to improving reporting, addressing cost controls and streamlining operating procedures.

Consultancy is also very helpful to act as a sounding board, coaching hospitality owners themselves to develop new working practices, which can then be carried on into the future without the need for ongoing external support.

The services that we provide can help businesses in a wide variety of situations, including:

·        Pre-openings

·        Distressed situations – helping owners to improve their financial results, prior to a sale for example

·        General hotel improvements - hotels keen to stay at the top of their game and looking for constant ways to improve their overall performance

·        Expansion and diversification plans

Every business differs in what aspects of the business they may need assistance with. The benefit of bringing in the right hotel consultant is that solutions can be developed which specifically cater to the needs of your own business, with the result being that your business performance will improve, resulting in enhanced trading results.

The Process?

Depending on your reason for getting in touch in the first place, the majority of services will firstly begin with a general introductory chat to get to know each other. This is an opportunity for you to ask questions and ascertain the value which bringing someone on board from outside the business can bring to the table. Remember that the end results should clearly speak for themselves in terms of return in investment, with the advice and action bringing far more value to  your business than the cost of the consultancy fee. 

If you decide you would like to proceed with a period of consultancy, we would then determine the scope of the work and importantly, agree pricing for the services in advance, to ensure you are happy with the proposed action plan.

Moving forward with the work, Stage 1 is generally a more detailed discussion with owners and thereafter a review of the current business performance. It is essential to carry out a robust initial assessment of how the business is currently operating in order to be able to clearly summarise the current situation and identify what is working well, what is not working so well and what the key needs of the business are moving ahead. Many owners underestimate the need to carry out this stage properly before moving on to any suggestions for improvements. Once the key areas to address are identified and the action plan is clear, we can then move on to Stage 2 and establish a comprehensive improvement or turnaround plan.  

Heritage Hospitality consulting can support owners and senior team members with full turnaround plans, or more specifically business plans, financial planning and driving profit, key decisions, marketing strategy, business development, operations, alongside coaching and mentoring.