It separates three questions that should not be collapsed into one:
- Is the hotel plan economically credible? Test demand, operating costs, capital requirements and monthly cash needs.
- Is this supplier capable of delivering it? Examine the proposed people, relevant assignments, reporting and transition plan.
- Are the commercial terms acceptable? Calculate the complete fee burden and understand owner approvals, remedies and exit costs.
Run the scorecard against each property-specific proposal, not each company’s general reputation. A strong operator can submit an unsuitable plan for a particular asset. Conversely, a capable operator should not be blamed for an acquisition price or capital structure imposed by the owner.
For an operator selection, hold the property, market case and financing assumptions constant initially. For an acquisition, score the proposed asset plan and separately test whether the purchase price meets the buyer’s requirements. For a soft-brand decision, compare affiliation against a credible funded independent alternative—not against doing nothing.
Why is owner cash the right starting point in 2026?
CBRE’s analysis published in LODGING on May 26, 2026 reported that its sample of 2,216 US hotels increased total operating revenue by 2.6% in 2025, while EBITDA increased only 0.3%. Those are sample-wide historical findings, not boutique-hotel margin benchmarks, but they demonstrate why revenue growth alone is an inadequate selection criterion. (lodgingmagazine.com)
Financial comparability also deserves renewed attention: HFTP identifies January 1, 2026 as the effective date of the USALI 12th Revised Edition. Require bidders to identify their accounting basis and reconcile historical and forecast classifications rather than assuming similarly named profit lines are identical. (academy.hftp.org)