What hotel consultancy costs, and how to judge the return

Owners rarely open with the question they most want answered, so let me answer it plainly: what does this cost, and how do I know it is worth it? The honest response to the first half is that it depends on the work — a focused operational review, an interim management engagement and a full turnaround are very different commitments. But the second half of the question is the one that matters, and it has a clearer answer.

Judge it on return, not on rate

The wrong way to evaluate hospitality consultancy is by the day rate, in the same way the wrong way to evaluate a hire is by the salary. What matters is the return against the cost — and in this work, the return should be visible and measurable, not a matter of faith.

A good operational review should identify recoverable profit that exceeds its own cost several times over, usually within a quarter. An interim manager should protect and often improve a business during a transition that would otherwise have cost far more in lost trade and drift. A turnaround is judged, quite simply, on whether the hotel is durably more profitable afterwards.

If a piece of consultancy cannot show you the number it is expected to move, you are buying an opinion. You should be buying a return.

What good engagements have in common

• A defined scope and a defined outcome, agreed before the work starts.
• A number it is meant to move, so success is measurable rather than felt.
• Work done alongside your team, not delivered over their heads, so the capability stays when the engagement ends.
• An honest view — including, when it is the truth, that a problem is smaller or larger than expected.

The reason I structure engagements this way is that it aligns the interests correctly. If the value has to exceed the cost for the work to be worth doing, then the work has to be aimed at value from the first day — not at billable time. That is the arrangement a serious owner should expect, and the one I think this profession should hold itself to.