6 thing every GM should check before opening your hotel

Opening a hotel can be stressful time for everyone at the hotel. With so many moving parts it is critical that everyone is focused and engaged around the mission of opening the hotel.

However in the frenzy, it is easy to lose track of some critical things that need to be checked before you open the hotel.

A Critical path will guide your team members and yourself and show you the path.

Here are 6 thing every GM should check before you open a hotel

Licenses and Permits

Indian rules make it very cumbersome to open a hotel. You will have to apply for close to 150 licenses and permits. Keep a tracker to ensure all the permits are in place before you open a hotel.

Opening without one is a clear invitation to trouble. So before you set the opening date, make sure all the paperwork is done.

Fire and life safety infrastructure

Personally walk all areas of the hotel and ensure that the fire and life safety infrastructure is in place. If you have the budget hire a fire safety consultant who will do the audit for you.

At the minimum, check if all the fire exits are free of obstruction, sprinklers and fire pumps working, smoke detectors operational and kitchen has fire suppression working.

Insurance

Please ensure that you carry proper insurance to cover loss and damage to property, life and guest. If the property is in a calamity prone zone, make sure that you take special coverage for that calamity.

Your insurance should also cover operations and employee policies before you begin operations.

Completed Punch list

Punch list are defect list which projects should complete and hand over to you . They are critical and will help to hold the contractor responsible for the work done in the hotel prior to you starting the hotel.

It is critical that you check and fix any defects as they can be capitalized during project stage and they do not affect your Profit and Loss statement. If you miss out on something during this stage, fixing them in the future will be very expensive proposition.

SOP and Training

A hotel is so much more that the building. It is a fully functioning city with many people working in them .

If you have hired people, you need to tell them what you want them to do. Standard operating procedure hep to set the standards of what is expected out of the new employees in your hotel.

During the opening phase , you will have plenty of time to train your team members. Use the time effectively to teach your SOP to your staff members, so that when your guest walk in, they experience a great well run hotel.

Working capital

It is very important to have some working capital with you before you open a hotel. While you are opening a hotel, you will have many adhoc payments because of the nature of the business.

It will help you to have working capital based on some parameters to run operate the first 45 to 60 days of the hotel.

Why 45 to 60. Because that is the approximate time it will take you to collect outstanding bills from your guests in case of bill to company.

If you follow these 6 thing every GM should check your hotel opening should be very smooth. Do it if you are in the process of opening a hotel.