Team and department heads
Identifying, hiring and training the general manager, the department heads and the operating staff, in the order the opening needs them rather than the order they become available.
Alorie · Services · Pre-opening
Service 01
From handover,
to first guest.
A contractor hands over a building; what opens is an operation. The team, the systems, the suppliers, the standards and the sales pipeline all have to exist before the first guest does, and most of that work happens in the eight months before the ribbon.
- 8Months of pre-opening, typically
- 19Properties advised, opened or run
- 2011Working with owners since
Built before the building is finished
Pre-opening is the least glamorous stage of a hotel and the one that decides how the first year trades. We work alongside the project manager, the architect, the designers and the consultants so that what is being built is translated into something that can be run: a work flow, a staffing plan, a set of standards and a budget that all arrive on the day the keys do.
We are on the project through the construction phase, not only at the end of it. Watching the standards of product and service while there is still time to change them costs less than discovering them at handover.
The contractor delivers a building. Everything that makes it a hotel is built separately, and in parallel.
Owners engage us for the whole of pre-opening, or for the parts they do not have in-house. Either way the same senior people do the work, and the reporting goes to you rather than to an operator.
What pre-opening covers
Five workstreams, run to one critical path. Each has a budget, a person accountable for it and a date.
Operating systems and standards
The policies, procedures and service standards the hotel will run on, and the systems behind them: property management, point of sale, accounting, and the information technology and operating equipment each department needs.
Supplier contracts and procurement
Specifying and buying furniture, fittings and operating equipment against the standards set in design, then holding suppliers to them — and keeping the inventories, so the first replacement cycle is a decision rather than a surprise.
Pre-opening sales and distribution
Rates, channels and contracts before there is a hotel to sell, with the marketing, advertising, public relations and sales plans that go with them.
Budget and critical path
The pre-opening budget, the manning budget and the working capital guidelines, with a five to ten year forecast behind them, and one dated critical path that every workstream reports against.
The critical path
A typical opening, counted back from the day the doors open. The dates move with the construction programme; the order rarely does.
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Twelve months out · distribution
Wholesale and web-based distribution contracts are negotiated and signed while the building is still a site, because the channels that fill the first quarter need that much lead time.
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Eight months out · pre-opening begins
The pre-opening budget and the critical path are agreed, and sales and marketing promotion starts against a confirmed opening date.
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Seven months out · the general manager
The general manager is appointed and takes ownership of the plan, the budget and the team still to be hired.
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Six months out · departments and systems
Finance, human resources, rooms and food and beverage are stood up as departments; the website and online reservations go live.
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Five months out · department heads and sales
Department heads and the sales team join, write their own standards into the operating manuals, and begin training.
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Ten weeks out · the team
The rest of the staff are hired and trained and the hotel is stocked, so the remaining weeks go on training and trial service rather than recruitment.
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Opening · handover to the operation
The hotel opens with its systems, policies and procedures in use, and monthly reporting already running against the budget.
A typical mandate
Scope varies with the property. This is the shape most pre-opening mandates take.
- Typically begins
- Eight months before the opening date, with distribution work starting about a year out.
- Team milestones
- General manager seven months out, department heads and the sales team five, the balance of the team around ten weeks out.
- Budgets
- Pre-opening budget, manning budget and working capital guidelines, with a five to ten year forecast behind them.
- Reporting
- Monthly, on the Uniform System of Hotel Accounts, with a rolling three-month forecast and the annual budget and capital expenditure plan.
- Ends
- On opening day, with the operating systems, policies and procedures in use and the team trained on them.
Food and beverage, decided early
In most hotels food and beverage is more decoration than contribution: it draws attention and carries the name more reliably than it carries the profit. That is a reason to design it carefully, not a reason to leave it late.
Quality and value are assumed by guests now; what separates one restaurant from another is the experience of being in it. So we look for a concept, a design and a setting that give the outlet a reason to exist beyond room service, and we leave the gimmicks alone. If taste, quality and value are not absolute, the idea is only decoration.
The same discipline applies to the plan. Combining kitchens, shortening the distance between them and the outlets, and sizing storage properly takes cost out of every year the hotel operates. And we will advise against a ballroom where the demand around the site does not support one: banqueting space is expensive to build and quiet to own if it is used once in a while.
Training, and the standards behind it
A hotel opens as well as its team has been trained. We mentor and coach rather than lecture, and we keep control and discipline while we do it: management team evaluation, labour productivity, operational training modules and food and beverage development, put together to fit the owner's vision rather than a template. Where a specialism is needed we bring in third-party consultants and run them.
The measure is a plain one: labour cost the margin can carry, with no drop in what the guest experiences.
Standards are written down before opening and audited after it, and the reporting starts in the first month — the Uniform System of Hotel Accounts, a rolling three-month forecast, benchmarking against the competitive set, and the inventories. Owners see the same numbers the hotel runs on, so the picture at month three is not a surprise.
Two openings we ran
Both went from a building site to a trading hotel with the same team on the job throughout.
The Manor, Kuala Lumpur
A 47-storey branded serviced residence on Persiaran Stonor, among the embassies, with 484 suites and two penthouses. Alorie shaped the concept, gave technical assistance, built the pre-opening operation and stayed on as manager.
- Opened 2023
- Infinity pool, sauna and leisure deck
- Rooftop restaurant and 24-hour concierge
Ames Hotel, Ayer Keroh, Melaka
300 keys and suites with a rooftop moonbar, a club floor and a cigar lounge. Alorie ran concept, technical planning and pre-opening, then managed the hotel.
- Opened July 2019
- Five best-review awards across 2020 and 2021
- From Agoda, Booking.com, Hotels.com and Expedia
Tell us about
the asset.
One email is enough: where the property is, what stage it is at, and what you need. We read every enquiry ourselves and reply personally.
Alorie Hospitality Management · L-3-7, Plaza Damas, 60 Jalan Sri Hartamas 1, Sri Hartamas, 50480 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia