How many staff is needed for a 60 room hotel?

You need as many as you need. It's not a Navy ship: you don't have a "compliment" (I'm not a believer in organizational charts), but you've got a lot of work to do, and you need a number of people there who can get it all done.

Some people try to run a hotel without a 24-hour front desk, but with over 30 rooms (and anything smaller is a bed-and-breakfast, or a Mom and Pop), I wouldn't try anything like that. So the front desk has to be attended 24–7 -- 168 hours per week. Four full-time equivalent employees could get it done, with one odd shift left over for the general manager to take a turn at driving the desk each week (which is a practice I'd encourage anyway, especially in a property that small).

You're probably going to need more than four people. Between the inevitable scheduling issues, people calling off, occasional turnover, and some people who just don't want to work more than four days a week; if you try to get by with just four bodies, you're going to be vulnerable to incurring overtime pay. But on the front desk, you're still going to have the equivalent of four people working 40 hours a week, plus the extra eight hour shift.

What would you do with an historic hotel built in the 1920s that was condemned and is now being given a new life as a boutique hotel?

Bring a large budget and a crowbar. And leave both of them locked up securely in the trunk of the car until you've checked out the neighborhood very thoroughly. 

(Of course, if in checking out the neighborhood, you think you might need to get to that crowbar in a hurry, I'd pass on that hotel. We'll get to that part.)

I love old hotels and old theatres (So much history yet to make... | You don't see this anymore... | Old theatres (Rockin' the Paradise . . .) and I've barely started on those Pinterest boards . . .  ), particularly those having some, at least local, historic significance. (The brand new Microtel on the next exit will be old in about 70 years, but not necessarily historic - 'cheap old' doesn't get it. The life expectancy of any building - like that of a person, and not entirely coincidentally - is seventy-something years. Yes, there are a lot of 80- or 100- or 200-year-old buildings out there, but in order to make that average work the way it does, there have to be an equal number that didn't make it past 40, or 50, or 60 . . .). 

But while a project like this can be rewarding in terms of more than just financial return, you want to be careful with your emotions on something this delicate and potentially tricky . . .

Here are some things you should know before you even begin.

When does the prices on hotels go down on the holidays?

Business travel is the bread and butter for most reputable hotels. (An older, cheaper, more run-down property with little business travel survives on the crumbs from the table of reputable hotels in its area.) And during any holiday - especially family holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter - business travel falls off. Everyone has family to think about, everyone has time off coming, no one feels like doing any business. 



Resort locations play by a slightly different set of rules, but - while these holidays come with extra free time and increased travel - family events prevail.

Some locations; Bethlehem, Pa., Gatlinburg, Tenn. (near Dollywood) and Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, with major holiday-oriented events, benefit somewhat from the lag - but often not enough to make up the loss in its entirety unless it's a year-round resort location.

But fixed expenses for the hotel continue, the bills still have to be paid, the staff has to be kept doing some work, and the hotel has to be kept open. 

So the law of supply and demand kicks in and does its power and magic - we drop the rates a bit, keep that much money coming in; and if you are traveling during one of those holiday times, you get a bit of a bargain.

Originally appeared on Quora

Why are hotels expensive even in developing countries?

Because most hotels  - at least, those built by American or European countries - are built to American or European standards (or, to be fair, the standards that prevail in the world's most advanced nations).

You're not going to go to a developing country and skimp or cut corners or take shortcuts on building codes, building materials, furnishings, or fire codes or fire safety in building a hotel there. If something went wrong, it could go very badly for you, at the very least in terms of public relations. Or, if you furnished it on the cheap or used cheap materials, your property would within a few years stick out as less than your other properties and give your entire group a bad name.  



You'll want to offer the same furnishings and amenities, because that's what your customer base (and without a pretty good idea who the customer base is going to be, I won't even buy or build in the next town, never mind a developing country) counts upon you for and expects to see when they arrive, so you don't want it unraveling.

Also, you're dealing with increased costs: many of the things with which you'll be furnishing your hotel will have to be imported. Luanda, Angola, for one extreme example, has been on several lists of the world's most expensive cities for a few years now. Its economy never quite recovered from a civil war that occurred a few decades ago, so literally everything of value in that country has to be imported: plan on adding shipping and import duties. And now, they've found oil reserves there, creating a supply-and-demand problem on top of that. Meanwhile, the biggest need in that country for a few years to come?  Housing. Plan on exorbitant land and construction costs.

I attempted to answer your question as I understood it (Why don't hotels get any cheaper as the rent and cost of living declines in less developed parts of the world?) I apologize if I did not understand the question correctly and did not give an appropriate answer accordingly. (Why is a hotel expensive by contrast to rent and cost of living, even in developing countries?  It's like that everywhere.)

Originally appeared on Quora

How do hotel owners shop for management companies?

Generally, the client-owner has a problem (or a want, or a dream, or a desire, in the case of a developer who wants to build a new hotel; but even that's a 'problem': at least that's a problem worth having); and goes to whoever he thinks can offer a solution. He's often not aware that there are even as many choices as there are to pick from.

Sometimes, it's a banker or an attorney or a franchise brand rep who refers him to a management company (usually a much larger, more established one). Sometimes, they actually do go online in search of one.

I know they don't all consult Forbes magazine, but I've gotten several calls as a result of articles I've written that were published on Forbes - every one of which was picked up by Forbes right here on Quora, and none of which contained my phone number. They just read the piece in Forbes, googled Beechmont, and found my badly SEO'd website that I only launched back in the spring (I need to find a way to fix that robots.txt), and a bunch of my answers on Quora (I love it that Google spiders Quora answers individually).

If one goes through my accumulated material on Quora, one can learn a lot about me and how I like to work . . . and then I get a call. As a way to get my foot in the door, I'll take that any day of the week over being one of those guys dressed up in a tailored suit and tie (which I avoid wearing to work: I'm too much of a hands-on guy) and phony smile, posing on a grand staircase in an upscale hotel lobby; like I've seen on a few management company websites. (No one's going to hire me for my looks, anyway. And frankly, that's just the way I like it.)

But that's just how people pick me.

If I check into a hotel room, and something about the room is unacceptable, how do I proceed?

Don't be shy about saying something. Housekeeping issues, dirty linens on the bed or dirty cups in the sink, are particularly unacceptable, and no decent hotel will expect you to endure that. If nothing else, they'll switch you to another room if you tell someone at the desk right away.




Old linens should be replaced as needed, and if an older, cheaper hotel tries to get too many more uses out of them, they're going to look dirty even if freshly washed. One problem I've frequently encountered in such properties back in the day is that a guest will complain that the sheets on the bed are dirty. That's a no-win situation for both the guest and the clerk. Back in my day, I could get you new sheets - but they're going to come out of the same laundry room from which the housekeepers got the 'dirty' ones that are now on your bed . . . 

So, if you suspect that's the case, I'd find another hotel the next time you're in that town.

Originally appeared on Quora

Is it stealing if you take certain items in your already paid-for hotel room like soap, shampoo, stationery, etc?

We expect guests to either use or to take consumable items - soap, shampoo, stationery, etc. You're welcome.

Things like towels, hair dryers, lamps, TVs, TV remotes (I think some guests are mutant aliens who eat TV remotes. Like, gee, the remote can't be counted upon to work with any TV anywhere except the one in the room, but they do travel . . . ), alarm clock radios, comforters, coffeemakers, bedspreads, blankets, etc., are obviously intended for the next guests, are part of the furnishings, and we don't want you taking them. They are also a bit more costly - in a cheap motel, almost as much as you paid for the room in some cases, and definitely more than our profit margin in many more cases - so yes, we go a little nuts when people help themselves to them.

Bathrobes occupy a grey area in the middle. Some hotels provide them as part of the bedding, and want to launder them and hang them for another guest when you check out. On the other hand, in a more upscale property, some people actually assume that they're gifts - with the hotel's blessing. Something like that is a good promotional item, if a little on the pricy side for a midscale hotel: if you did it at all, you'd only do it for your most important customers. I wouldn't provide them in every room to every guest, but a VIP might find a bathrobe monogrammed with the hotel logo left in the room, as a gift. (Not all of them get opened or taken in places where I've seen it done that way.)