What is the one feature, outside basic necessities like running water, that every hotel room should have?

A bed, some clean bedding, four walls, a floor, a roof, a clean bath, and a locking door. 

And then, the question becomes, do you want to be able to rent the darn thing to human beings that you wouldn't mind having as guests? Because that's what it comes down to: each person measures their own 'need'. Define essential. Whatever item you name, you might feel very uncomfortable without it, even though not that many people feel the need for it. Or you could do without it just fine, but the guy next door will suffer through his stay for lack of it. (Do you actually watch all the channels you have on your cable TV? Yet, even if one of the 'amazing TV offers' channels were eliminated, someone would complain to the cable company.)



We once tried to come up with a hotel with bare-bones amenities, where we could rent the rooms cheap cheap. (Twitter was a new thing, then, and people seemed to like the little blue bird, so inspired by that, and the 'cheap cheap' description, we even came up with a brand for it: 'Bluebird Hotel'.) 

I mean, we were downright shameless and aggressive about it, looking for every way in the book plus a few no book would dare print, to cut costs and make it possible to rent the rooms for forty bucks a night or under.

Why do expensive hotels nickel and dime you?

Because they can. And in the end, nobody really cares.

(You and I don't count. While I was writing this one up, I recalled that a quarter century ago, they came up with a hotel brand that was all but made for people like you and I who go nuts with all the 'extra' charges, having to deal with people who are in the 'fee collection' business; and went overboard with my weakness for storytelling . . . If it's any consolation, I did come up with an idea for a new venture.)

There are several reasons why.

• A few years back when I was on a trip to my mother's home, my mom, who developed a liking for plush, late-model American-made luxury cars as she reached a point in life where she could afford them if she bought them slightly used, was shopping for a Cadillac or a Lincoln for herself on Cars.com, but - ever my frugal mom -  going nuts because she couldn't find a model that uses regular gas. All Cadillac and Lincoln models, it appears, use premium. Every time she'd find another car on Cars.com and Edmunds that she liked, it would be the same thing: she'd look up the model and find she'd have to buy premium gas for it. She was starting to drive me and my stepfather a little nuts with it, too. I told her, Mom, a guy goes out and spends fifty to seventy-five grand to buy a brand new Caddy, he's not going to be the type to complain about having to pay an extra thirty cents a gallon on gas at three dollars and something per gallon. If he were, he'd do like I do, get a Honda, VW or Toyota for half as much that works just as well and burns regular. So, they don't bother to design them to burn regular gas. But for the last few months, the extra cost, high-test gas has been my problem. The last two years have not been my mother's best: she has been diagnosed with cancer and isn't going to be with us much longer. She has done some estate planning, cashed some insurance policies; and more recently divided up some money and property among my brother, sister and myself. In the process of getting herself down to one vehicle, she gave me one of her Cadillacs. I like Cadillacs and Town Cars but I don't have a particular preference for them like she did for the last fifteen years: quite frankly, the extra forty cents a gallon for premium gas is one of the reasons why. But I like having my mom's Caddy and am glad she thought of me. It happened just as I needed to replace a vehicle; but rather than buy one, I now have something that belonged to my mom that I should get a few more years out of after she's gone. That means more to me than the brand. So, I make my peace with the high-test gas: it's part of the price of having that car. (Late note, March 30, 2014  ) It works the same way for hotels, if you'd rather stay at a Ritz-Carlton or St. Regis rather than a Hampton Inn or a Courtyard. If you want the product, and don't care if it's a little more pricy, then you're not as likely to notice, or complain about, the extras that come with it but are priced separately. Those are part of the price.

What is RevPAR in the hotel industry?

REVPAR = "revenue per available room".

It can be applied to economy or mid-market hotels, where room revenue is nearly all of your total revenue, but doesn't tell you a whole lot other than that you're not doing a very good job of filling your rooms, if it's much lower than your average daily rate (ADR) -- as though the occupancy percentage isn't the giveaway on that.

It becomes a more useful figure when room revenue is only part of your total revenue; because your total revenue will include food and beverage -- restaurant and lounge -- meeting and banquet space, and any resort fees (real resort fees, from things guests actually use and know ahead of time they're going to be asked to pay for, like maybe a golf course), a casino (if you were so fortunate to have one forty years ago, when they were the thing to have; as opposed to now, when they're anything but); and income from retail operations on property and any extra-cost services (laundry and valet, phone, wi-fi if you charge for it).

Even then, unless you're also looking at CPAR (cost per available room) and GOPPAR (gross operating profit per available room), as Mike Holovacs pointed out, you're only seeing part of the story -- for both the entire hotel; and for each department and revenue stream, and costly service or amenity offered, within it.

What does it take to run a successful hotel?

I could ask, 'define success'. Are you running a Motel 6 on an I-80 offramp in Podunk, Kansas; or are you going to go all out with mega-luxury, rooms you can rent for $800 to $3000 per night, lots of meeting and banquet space, and a restaurant that people will fly in for; and give the St. Regis [http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotel...] a run for it? It makes a difference. Usually. For this answer, I'll try to not let it.

Like my answer to What does it take to start a hotel?, this is one of those open-ended questions that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, but for the fact that someone of the caliber of David S. Rose was doing the asking (which could work into a great leap forward for my company if he should ever decide to stray outside tech ventures and into more real estate, "Main Street" businesses, and bricks and mortar-related stuff, and he likes my answers on the subject); because no answer anyone could give would come close to adequate.