Who this is for
Revenue directors, operations directors, and owner-operators of hotel groups in the United Kingdom, usually with three houses or more. The useful moment is when occupancy percentages have been discussed for months and still do not explain why rooms money moved the other way, or when one house is carrying an estate that looks even on paper.
We work from Maidenwell. Visits are arranged to selected houses; we do not need to walk every property if the night-audit extracts are complete.
What you receive
A written occupancy and rooms-revenue reading, property by property. The file names occupied room nights, empty nights, weekday versus weekend fill, length of stay, and the mix — transient, contracted groups, crew or contractor, and complimentary or house-use — for the period agreed. It also names empty-night clusters that repeated (a dark Monday pattern, a wing closed and still counted as available, a cancelled wedding that sat in the occupancy column as if it had stayed).
The briefing is a conversation with the people who will take the file to the board or to the weekly revenue meeting. It is not a guest-facing occupancy chart for the website.
What is included
- An intake call to agree the period, the houses, and which extracts you can actually send.
- A request list for night-audit or rooms-revenue files, group diaries, and out-of-order logs.
- Desk reading from Maidenwell, including a check that available rooms match the building.
- A written file with occupancy tables and commentary in ordinary English.
- A remote briefing of up to ninety minutes, or a half day on site at one house if travel is agreed.
What is not included
- Rewriting rate plans or restrictions inside the property-management system.
- Taking guest bookings, running a call centre, or selling rooms on third-party sites.
- Kitchen, spa, or banquet profitability, except where breakfast covers or banquet rooms occupancy contradict the rooms file.
- Mystery shopping of reception or housekeeping.
Who does the work
Eleanor Vickers leads group reviews. She previously kept the rooms board for a Lincolnshire coaching-inn group. Marcus Hale reads mix and contracted blocks. Priya Nair turns the file into paper a board will actually open. None of us operate hotels; we read how they traded.
How the engagement runs
- You write with house count, the period you care about, and whether extracts exist.
- We send a figures request. Incomplete extracts slow the calendar more than a large estate does.
- Desk reading occupies most of the four to six weeks. We query obvious mismatches — occupancy that the breakfast room could not have served, rooms counted as available while a wing was closed.
- If a house visit is in scope, it happens after the first tables exist, so the walk is against a file, not a tour.
- You receive the written reading, then the briefing. Questions after that are answered in writing for two weeks.
Time and place
Typically four to six weeks from receipt of figures. Desk work is done at 71 Cunnery Rd, Maidenwell. House visits are usually Tuesday to Thursday so Monday occupancy meetings are not displaced. Travel from Maidenwell is charged as agreed.
What we need from you
Occupied and available rooms by day, if you have them; otherwise night-audit extracts we can reconstruct. Group contracts that blocked rooms. A list of out-of-order rooms and closed wings. Names of the people who will sit in the briefing. We do not need guest names, card details, or staff personnel files.
Limits
We will not invent occupancy where the extracts are missing. A house that cannot produce a year of occupied nights will be treated as a single-house study or declined. We do not compare your rates with a neighbouring hotel unless you already subscribe to a competitive-set occupancy exchange and can share it.
Fees
From £4,800 for a three-house estate; larger groups are quoted. The fee reflects house count, extract quality, and whether visits are included. A deposit of one third is due when the figures request is sent. See rates and refunds.
Next step
Write with the number of houses and the period you want read. We reply within three working days with whether a group review, a single-house study, or a board pack is the better shape.