Rod Clough, MAI | July 21, 2023

By Rod Clough

As HVS associates travel nationwide and experience new hotels, or newly renovated and revitalized properties, we are seeing many owners creating innovative ways to generate revenue. Here are just a few ways we’ve recently come across:

Golf Offerings

  • Ryan Mark, Director in our Denver office, shared that he consulted on a Courtyard by Marriott that had converted its indoor swimming pool into golf simulator bays (given the hotel’s location near a popular golf course), with food service available from the hotel’s Bistro. Golf bay rentals and an increase in Bistro revenue were significant enhancements to the P&L.
  • John Berean, Senior Vice President and leader of HVS Honolulu and HVS San Francisco, noted that hotels are partnering with Topgolf to not only generate additional revenue but also enhance offerings to groups considering booking their properties.

Locally-Sourced Goods

  • Tanya Pierson, MAI, Senior Managing Director of our Minneapolis office, shared that she has seen locally-sourced items for sale in the hotel’s market pantry. This both supports local business and helps differentiate the hotel from the otherwise typical hotels in a neighborhood.

Pools

  • Kathleen Donahue, Senior Managing Director of our Dallas office, noted a property in her market where every pool chair has a Q-code to be reserved and rented. Guests can order food and beverages through the Q-code as well.
  • Another pool-revenue-generating observation was made by David Preiss, Project Manager in the HVS Detroit office, where he found a hotel selling passes to their indoor pool to local residents, which is a successful tactic during the colder months of the year in this particular location.
  • Suzanne Mellen, Senior Managing Director in the HVS San Francisco office, is seeing more hotels sign up with the ResortPass app to generate day-use pool and other amenity revenue – even in urban hotels.

Hourly Rentals

  • Paul Savage, VP in the HVS Executive Search division, is seeing the increasing use of Jurny, which facilitates people in transit booking rooms by the hour (between guest arrivals) or renting parking spaces hourly, among other innovations.

Laundry

  • I recently consulted in a small town where a motel planned to open its newly renovated guest laundry room to the neighborhood residents. Given the lack of a laundromat in the town, this is expected to become a nice new revenue source for the small property.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments if you too have seen anything new out there on your travels!