Deep Hospitality · a working brief for a data partner

One view of the month, across fifty hotels

A hotel management company wants its monthly owner review to come from one place, not from forty slides built by hand. This brief sets out the business, the geography, why it matters now, and what a data consolidation partner would be walking into. The client is not named here.

The business, in outline

A hotel management company running about fifty hotels in more than twenty countries across Africa and the Middle East, with plans to reach a hundred. About half the hotels carry one brand and run on that brand’s central systems. The rest operate under international brands, each on the brand’s own front-office stack, or as independents. Ownership is spread across many owners, from single-asset investors to groups holding several hotels, and that is true within the main brand as well. Head office is in Dubai.

The company manages on behalf of owners, and there are many of them. Every month, each hotel accounts for itself to its owner in a business review: a pack of slides and a meeting. That review is the product the leadership team is judged on, and it’s the thing they want to change.

Why now

40 to 80 slides

per hotel, per month, assembled by hand from eight departments

10 to 20 hours

of management time to build one pack. One cluster’s own estimate.

Day 15 to 20

before the owner reads about a month that ended on day 30

5 to 10 slides

is what owners told us they want. Position, the gap, the next three months.

The numbers in the pack arrive as pictures pasted from other systems, so nothing can be compared against budget or last year without rebuilding it by hand. Errors reach owners. The general manager writes the commentary slide by slide. Corporate reads it, sends questions back, and the slides are corrected. By then this month is half gone.

Three ledgers, several front-office systems, a revenue planning tool mid-rollout, and one Excel template filled in by a person every month. Nothing talks to anything. That’s the burning platform: the leadership team has asked for warnings before a number turns red, and no dashboard on its own can give them that until the data sits in one connected place.

How the month is built today

8 departments send in Put together by hand Then it travels Each from its own system or file. Every hotel, every month. Up through the region to corporate and the owner. Finance Sun, Sage, NetSuite profit and loss, receivables, cash Revenue Opera, STR occupancy, rate, segments, forecast Sales own files accounts, pipeline, promotions Marketing platform reports campaigns, social, press Food and beverage Micros outlets, covers, costs Guest experience Medallia, Booking, Google review scores, comments HR and training spreadsheets headcount, payroll, training records Engineering own files capital projects, maintenance One person collates the finance lead, the GM or a coordinator slides and sheets arrive by email numbers pasted in as pictures last month’s file copied forward 40 to 80 slides in PowerPoint The GM writes the commentary slide by slide Regional deck the hotel packs rebuilt by hand into a second deck Corporate reads it; questions go back, slides are corrected The owner meets on last month when this month is half gone What it takes 1 to 2 days chasing departments 10 to 20 hours management time per pack Day 15 to 20 before the review is read As the hotels and the corporate team described it to us in interviews. The hours are one cluster’s own estimate.

Drawn from six general manager interviews, two owner conversations, and the corporate finance team.

The systems underneath

About 50 hotels, more than 20 countries, Africa and the Middle East One brand, about half the hotels One central stack and one chart of accounts; owners differ hotel by hotel International brands and independents Each on its brand's own front-office system Front office Opera and Simphony, centrally run Three or more brand stacks, Opera among them Ledgers Sage Sun Oracle NetSuite by hand by hand by hand One Excel profit-and-loss template, the same for every hotel Filled from each ledger by a person, every month; occupancy and rates keyed in separately from the front office A planning tool, arriving now Financial staging: about a third of the hotels this quarter, the rest around year end The layer that reads all of this Rooms, revenue and finance in one live view, across the estate The monthly business review pack sits on top: today 30 to 80 slides per hotel, reaching corporate between the 15th and the 20th

One brand with central systems on one side; brand stacks and independents on the other. Three ledgers between them. Owners differ hotel by hotel on both sides.

What that means for consolidation

Where it’s going

1 · Today 2 · One place 3 · Connected Ten systems. The pack is built by hand each month. Two routes in, one view out, above the properties. An assistant reads that one view. People decide. Operafront office Microsoutlets Sunledger Sageledger NetSuiteledger Planning toolpart of the estate so far Excelby hand, each month PowerPoint40 to 80 slides Medallia, Booking, Googlereviews Emailto each owner Nothing talks to anything. Someone re-types it. directvia the tool One data layer the corporate view, above the properties finance from the planning tool, its hotels rooms via the tool: market code only Opera and the ledgers direct for the rest, and wherever finer detail is wanted one view by hotel, brand, region, portfolio Dashboardsfor the GMs Owner reportsone per owner The planning tool stays as it isat property level: forecast, budget, finance file direct link An AI assistant for the leadership team and the regions ask anything of the whole estate warned before a number turns red action plans drafted, sent once approved last month’s actions checked no fixed dashboard: your questions A person approvesbefore anything reaches a property or an owner The monthly review, assembledfrom the same data, checked, then sent Opera, Micros, Sun, Sage, NetSuite and Medallia are the systems in use today, plus one revenue and finance planning tool mid-rollout. The data layer and the assistant are the target state.

The planning tool stays at property level. One data layer sits above it. An assistant reads that layer so the leadership team gets warnings, not dashboards. A person approves before anything reaches a property or an owner.

The owner review itself is already designed: three levels of detail, from fourteen slides down to only what moved, built on a real month of a real hotel. The content is settled. What’s missing is the plumbing that fills it without a person re-typing.

What we’d like to talk about

We’re looking for a partner who consolidates hotel operating data for a living, to work alongside us on the layer in the middle. Specifically:

If this is the kind of work you do, we’d welcome a conversation.