Blog - Actabl

Hotel Labor Costs Jump 12.8% in 2025, Squeezing GOP Margins

Sarah McCay Tams — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 12:36:47 +0000

Labor remains the defining variable in hotel profitability. The latest HotelData.com by Actabl report shows a clear pattern in 2025: wage-driven cost pressure accelerated, productivity improved in pockets, and margin outcomes depended on how precisely operators aligned labor to demand.

The headline figure tells the story. In Q4 2025, Wages Cost per Occupied Room (CPOR) increased 21.1% year over year, more than double the full-year pace. That late-year surge materially shifted the cost base as demand softened.

For the full year, average labor CPOR rose 12.8%, from $42.82 in 2024 to $48.32 in 2025. Hotels paid more per stay not simply because hourly wages increased, but because labor intensity and workload pressure compounded the effect.

At the same time, macro conditions reinforced the shift. Inflation remained elevated, with CPI up 2.7% year over year in December, and real average hourly earnings increased 1.1%. Hospitality operators competed in a labor market where worker expectations held firm.

When Productivity Does Not Keep Pace

Hours per Occupied Room (HPOR) rose 3.6% in Q4, reaching 2.18 hours. Across the full year, HPOR increased 4.4%, finishing at 2.11 hours per occupied room. Hotels required more labor time per stay, even as wage rates climbed.

That combination explains the margin compression seen late in the year. According to the Q4 2025 Profit Report, full-year GOP margin increased 1.1 percentage points to 38.3%, even as RevPAR declined. However, in Q4 alone, GOP margin fell 3.3 points to 36.0%. Revenue slowed. Labor costs did not flex proportionally.

This is the core profitability lesson of 2025. When labor CPOR rises faster than revenue per available room, margins narrow quickly. When operators align staffing precisely to demand variability, margins stabilize.

Hotel Type Tells a Different Story

Wage pressure did not hit every operating model equally. In Q4, Full Service hotels saw CPOR jump 23.8% year over year, from $59.39 to $73.53. Extended Stay, Select Service, and Resorts posted smaller increases.

Over the full year, Resorts stand out. They reduced wage CPOR by 4.7%, the only segment to move costs lower. This was not a demand story. Resorts also reduced headcount while improving productivity. That signals process redesign and tighter labor standards, not temporary cuts.

Full Service properties, by contrast, increased headcount 3.1% across the year. In higher-complexity environments, small scheduling gaps magnify cost pressure.

The implication for profitability is direct. Operating model discipline matters as much as rate strategy. Hotels that redesign workflows and align labor standards to demand can protect GOP margin even in a wage-inflation cycle.

Department-level Productivity: Where Time Moved

Department data reinforces the theme. Housekeeping hours per occupied room increased 2.1% year over year, from 0.727 to 0.742. Guest Services rose 0.8%. Management time declined slightly, down 0.5%.

Hotels protected frontline service while tightening leadership time. That aligns with guest expectations. It also shifts cost concentration toward operational roles that scale directly with occupancy.

Housekeeping remains the largest variable labor driver in the Rooms department. In Full Service hotels, Housekeeping hours increased 1.5% year over year. Even modest increases in room-level labor intensity expand total CPOR.

Overtime patterns add another layer. Overtime for Room Attendants increased 4.9% in 2025, while most other roles saw year-over-year declines. Overtime acts as a flexible buffer, but when deployed consistently in core roles, it signals structural workload pressure.

Role-level Pressure: Time Plus Rate

At the position level, cost movement reflects both minutes per occupied room and wage rates.

Maintenance Engineers absorbed one of the strongest combined impacts. Minutes per occupied room increased 3.4%, hourly wages rose 4.0%, and CPOR advanced 7.5%. Engineering stands out as a margin lever for 2026.

Room Attendants saw minutes increase 0.8% and wages rise 3.6%, pushing CPOR up 4.4%. Small shifts in cleaning time scale quickly across hundreds of rooms.

Leadership roles improved productivity, but wage growth offset those gains. General Manager minutes declined 2.6%, yet hourly rates increased 6.2%, lifting CPOR 3.6%. Assistant General Managers followed a similar pattern, with minutes down 0.8%, wages up 4.0%, and CPOR up 3.3%.

In short, 2025 was not a single labor issue. It was wage inflation plus workload intensity, concentrated in guestrooms and engineering.

What This Means for GOP Margin in 2026

The data is clear. Implied hotel labor cost per hour increased meaningfully in 2025, outpacing national wage benchmarks. At the same time, HPOR rose across the year. When both rate and time increase, cost multiplies.

Full-year GOP margin improved modestly, but Q4 compression shows how fragile gains can be. In a softer RevPAR environment, profit protection shifts from pricing power to operational precision.

For hotel leaders building 2026 budgets, three actions stand out.

First, separate wage assumptions from productivity targets. Model rate growth clearly, then build operational plans to offset it.
Second, focus on role-level workload signals. Engineering response time, room-cleaning deployment, and front-desk scheduling drive CPOR more than broad staffing averages.
Third, plan labor by demand shape, not monthly averages. Q4 volatility proved that static labor models erode margin quickly.

Labor remains the largest controllable expense in most hotels. In 2025, it also became the most decisive margin lever. Operators that treat labor as a precision system, measured in minutes and dollars per room, will carry the strongest GOP performance into 2026.

Understand how your hotel business compares. Download the complete 2025 Hotel Labor Costs and Trends report to discover how labor costs flexed by hotel type, department, position, overtime, headcount, and geography.

The post Hotel Labor Costs Jump 12.8% in 2025, Squeezing GOP Margins appeared first on Actabl.

Profit Protection in a Slower Market: What Q4 2025 Data Reveals About Hotel Margins

Sarah McCay Tams — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 12:52:24 +0000

Hotel profitability tightened in the final quarter of 2025. According to the latest HotelData.com report, Q4 2025: The Profit Squeeze That Followed Peak Season, the industry shifted from holding rate to protecting margin as demand softened and revenue growth slowed.

While ADR declined modestly and RevPAR fell more sharply in Q4, the deeper story sits in gross operating profit. GOP% data shows pressure in the fourth quarter and resilience across the full year. However, operators did not rely on rate growth alone. They adjusted cost structures, tightened operations, and preserved profit share even as top-line momentum weakened.

Q4: Margin Compression Takes Hold

The step down from Q3 to Q4 was clear. ADR slipped from $181.52 in Q3 to $179.96 in Q4, a decline of 0.9%. RevPAR fell 9.6%, from $123.77 to $111.87.

Margins followed.

GOP% declined from 39.3% in Q3 to 36.0% in Q4, a 3.3-point drop.

The gap between ADR and RevPAR tells the story. Rate held relatively steady, but occupancy and mix softened. With revenue falling faster than rate, fixed and variable costs did not adjust quickly enough to maintain margin levels. This pattern is common when demand loses momentum. Even disciplined operators face margin compression when occupancy declines.

Q4 did not signal collapse. It confirmed normalization. The industry entered a more selective demand environment, where profit protection required precision rather than broad market lift.

Full-Year 2025: Revenue Down, Profit Share Up

The annual data presents a more nuanced picture.

For the full year 2025, ADR declined 2.5% year over year, from $185.48 in 2024 to $180.92 in 2025. RevPAR fell 6.3%, from $126.18 to $118.26.

Yet GOP% improved.

Gross operating profit margin rose from 37.2% in 2024 to 38.3% in 2025, a gain of 1.1 percentage points.

This combination defines the year. Revenue softened, but operators increased profit share. Margin expansion in a down-revenue environment reflects tighter labor deployment, disciplined purchasing, and more conservative expense ramping.

The month of May delivered the strongest margin lift, up nearly three percentage points year over year. December closed two percentage points above the prior year.

These gains indicate structural adaptation. Operators recalibrated cost models to align with a more volatile revenue environment.

Budget Expectations Versus Reality

Budget assumptions overshot revenue momentum in 2025.

Full-year budgeted ADR was $188.08 versus actual ADR of $180.92, a 3.8% shortfall. Budgeted RevPAR was $124.52, versus actual RevPAR of $118.26, a 5.0% gap.

GOP% proved more resilient. Budgeted margin was 39.1%, compared with actual GOP% of 38.3%, a difference of just 0.8 points.

Despite revenue missing plan, operators kept profit margins close to expectations. In May, GOP% exceeded budget by one percentage point, reaching 43.67%.

This reinforces a core budgeting lesson. Plans that rely primarily on ADR growth struggle when demand becomes selective. Profit protection requires operational flexibility tied directly to revenue performance.

Chain Scale: Margin Discipline Wins in the Middle

Performance varied by chain scale.

Upper Midscale outperformed budget on margin, posting a 0.2-point improvement versus plan. Independent hotels faced the most margin pressure, landing 4.5 points below budget.

Luxury and Upper Upscale held up better on topline metrics, and in some cases expanded margins, reflecting stronger premium demand. The Economy and Midscale segments experienced more consistent RevPAR pressure.

The results underscore a widening performance split. Value with operational consistency proved resilient. Properties exposed to volatile demand mix or heavier discounting faced tighter profit outcomes.

A Structural Shift Toward Precision

Q4 2025 did not represent a temporary dip. It validated a structural shift in how profit is earned.

Inflation cooled into early 2026, but affordability pressures persist. Borrowing costs remain elevated. Demand continues to show K-shaped characteristics, with affluent travelers sustaining spend while price-sensitive segments trade down or delay trips.

In this environment, GOP% became a sharper indicator of operational discipline. Revenue growth alone no longer defines success. The ability to flex labor, control variable costs, and align expense structures with real-time demand determines whether profit holds.

Operators heading into 2026 cannot plan for market lift. They must forecast with occupancy realism, align labor models with revenue performance, and pressure-test ancillary assumptions.

The full analysis, data tables, and regional breakdowns are available in the latest HotelData.com report, Q4 2025: The Profit Squeeze That Followed Peak Season.

Download the full report to understand how margin discipline, operational consistency, and profit protection shaped 2025, and what it means for your 2026 strategy.

The post Profit Protection in a Slower Market: What Q4 2025 Data Reveals About Hotel Margins appeared first on Actabl.

Hotel Forecasting: How to Win In 2026

Sarah McCay Tams — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 17:57:17 +0000

Want to unlock the secrets to success in hotel operations in 2026?

We asked a hotel data scientist, financial coach, and hotel visionary how to win in 2026 on our latest thought leadership webinar on hotel forecasting and portfolio reporting, which took place on February 5, 2026.

We wanted to help our webinar participants learn how to move beyond "clean numbers" and drive a competitive advantage that impacts profits, guest satisfaction, and associate engagement.

In a frank and informed discussion, we heard from:

Shozib Khan, VP of Hotel and Owner Services at Spire Hospitality
David Lund, known as “The Hotel Financial Coach”
Chris Green, President of Humanitarian Hotels

Here’s their advice on ‘How to win in 2026’:

Shozib Khan is a self-described "data scientist with a soul.” He draws from his background in chemistry and over two decades of hotel experience, from shuttle driver to executive leadership, to bridge the gap between complex analytics and human-centric hospitality. He is a pioneer in applying the scientific method to solve operational challenges, focusing on automating the "science" of reporting to free hoteliers to focus on the "art" of leading people and serving guests.

“As we look at 2026, across our portfolio and across our industry as well, having alignment on expectations, something that can connect the dots from the boardroom in the investment office to the break room at the hotel, is important. There are many times when multiple leaders believe we're trying to go left when we're trying to go right, and just creating alignment on expectations, results, and performance is a huge win. That's powered by data that's embraced as a tool, not something that you're afraid of.”

David Lund is a hospitality financial leadership pioneer and the author of The Prosperous Hotelier. With over 40 years of experience, including senior leadership roles at Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, David has dedicated his work to improving the industry's financial literacy. He is the creator of frameworks designed to turn non-financial hotel managers into business-savvy leaders who treat their data as a steering wheel rather than a report card.

“A lot of hotel companies could use better financial statements. I look at so many financial statements, and half of them are missing key elements, like measuring flow-through, measuring great segmentation, measuring productivity, and being able to see a payroll summary by department.

“We have so many opportunities to design wonderful financial statements, and people aren't taking advantage of that, so that's an easy win.”

Chris Green is President of Humanitarian Hotels, an initiative of the Pulte Family Charitable Foundation that directs 100% of net profits to charity while operating hotels with a performance-first mindset. He holds 30+ years of hospitality leadership experience, having previously served as President of Remington Hospitality and as President & CEO of Chesapeake Hospitality prior to its 2022 merger with Remington.

“I didn't get into this business because I love numbers. I entered this business because I love people and seeing them succeed. As a leader in this industry, I don't know how I could look my people in the face and not be incredibly good with the numbers and care about financial performance, because otherwise, they can't succeed.

“As leaders, it’s important to remember why you started in the first place. It's to give other people an opportunity to do what you're doing, and the only way to do that is by being good with the numbers, great with forecasting, and being ruthless about your attention to winning.”

Missed out on this webinar, or want to watch it again? You can now catch it on demand here.

The post Hotel Forecasting: How to Win In 2026 appeared first on Actabl.

5 Ways CSM Corporation Protects Hotel Labor Costs

Sarah McCay Tams — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 14:03:28 +0000

CSM Corporation builds, owns, manages, and operates more than 40 hotels across the US. An award-winning hotel management company, including Marriott Hotel of the Year (three times) and Marriott Developer of the Year two years in a row, CSM Corporation operates hotels for well-respected brands like Carlson, Hilton, Hyatt, and Marriott.

The company operates across multiple hotel asset types, including full-service, select-service, and extended-stay hotels coast to coast.

The challenges of operating such a varied portfolio are great, yet CSM leadership continues to stay in touch with the day-to-day to ensure all areas of the business are optimized, including labor costs.

We caught up with Peter Kilbourne, Senior Vice President of Lodging Operations, CSM Corporation, to discover how the company has managed to keep a check on labor costs and even reduce overtime in recent years.

Having previously served as Vice President of Operations at Ambridge Hospitality, the world's largest hotel management company, Peter has a wealth of expertise in leading hotel operations.

According to Peter, CSM has leant into several strategies to optimize labor, including:

Adopting labor management tools & processes
Embracing flexible scheduling
Encouraging cross-training
Using overtime as a flexible tool
Focusing on labor measurement

1. Adopting Labor Management Tools & Processes

In 2023, CSM Corporation undertook two major projects: launching Hotel Effectiveness by Actabl and adopting the STEPS program by PDQ. Benchmarking against 2019 performance, these two initiatives helped CSM Corporation to reduce overtime by 50% and achieve gains of between five and ten minutes per occupied room in the housekeeping team.

“We've maintained these labor efficiency gains and held steady at the same level of overtime consumed. Ensuring that housekeeping leaders are completing the 5-minute daily labor check-in [in Hotel Effectiveness] is key. That really helps them to keep a sharp focus on individual housekeepers' productivity and offer them any additional retraining,” Peter explained.

A 50% reduction in overtime is huge, but the small, incremental savings CSM Corporation is making per room, per night, across the portfolio adds up to significant savings, too.

“We found that those two initiatives alone more than paid for the investment we put into them, twofold,” Peter remarked.

Learn more about Actabl’s hotel labor management software: https://actabl.com/labor-management-software/

2. Embracing Flexible Scheduling

One strategy CSM has adopted in recent years is to hire more part-time associates and fewer full-time associates.

“That allowed us to reduce the cost of benefits and exposure to additional overtime and increased our scheduling flexibility. Having more part-time associates, obviously, there tends to be a higher headcount overall, but it gives us more flexibility and less risk with overtime,” Peter explained.

Leaning into part-time work is also used strategically to provide CSM Corporation with a flexible team, without the premium cost of contract labor.

“You have the cost of recruitment,” Peter admitted. “But, if you can hire two part-time associates versus one full-time contract person, you are going to drive better results to the bottom line, because you're not paying that premium wage that the contract labor requires.”

3. Encouraging Cross-Training

Cross-training has also proved to be key to optimizing labor scheduling and costs. Peter shared an example of how this has been working for CSM:

“One of our hotels was heading into a particularly slow time of the year for them. We needed to cut hours in the kitchen, but we were short-staffed in engineering. So, the general manager went to the cooks and said, ‘I can give you some hours in engineering doing room preventative maintenance, and we'll train you to do so if you'd like, and that way your hours will remain stable.’ That gave us better margin, better room quality, and higher associate and guest satisfaction.”

4. Using Overtime as a Tool

According to Peter, overtime is used as a strategic asset at CSM.

“We don't want to drop a room at the end of the day out of fear of incurring overtime when we could potentially sell that room. Similarly, we don't want to turn away a banquet or event out of fear of overtime. We need to make sure that there is a strategic reason for overtime, and that it has a return on investment to it, and not just simply coming right off the bottom line,” he explained.

One way CSM Corporation has managed overtime strategically is by locking its time clocks so associates cannot punch in or out more than 5 minutes beyond the start or end of their shift. Anything beyond those five minutes requires a manual time missed punch form and management approval.

“That is allowing us to prevent time clock bleed. It has helped to control that overtime and ensure that all our properties are being very strategic with it,” Peter added.

5. Focusing on Labor Measurement

Another focus for Peter and his team is labor measurement, reporting, and forecasting. The Operations team is moving to a minutes-per-occupied-room (MPOR)-based standard. Prior to that, the company was using four occupancy-based tiers to determine labor requirements.

“If you went from 25% to 26% occupancy, for example, you jumped a tier, and that might be a jump of four hours with only a 1% jump in occupancy. When you move to an MPOR-based calculation, it will be completely variable and a lot more logical. That is certainly going to help us to refine and drive those continued savings that we are seeing here in our productivity.”

All these strategies, combined, have provided CSM Corporation with more options, greater flexibility in moving labor levels up and down, and the ability to cultivate a strong workforce of satisfied associates.

Discover how Hotel Effectiveness could help your hotel operations to cut overtime and drive team efficiency. Request a demo today: https://actabl.com/request-a-demo/

The post 5 Ways CSM Corporation Protects Hotel Labor Costs appeared first on Actabl.

How Hotels Can Streamline Labor Planning Across Finance and Operations

Sarah McCay Tams — Tue, 20 Jan 2026 09:50:22 +0000

When labor budgets and labor plans live in separate systems, hotel teams lose time, accuracy, and alignment. When budgets are built in one system and labor standards in another, on-property teams end up working from incomplete or inconsistent information. The result is a fragmented labor story unable to scale across a multi-property portfolio.

Connecting Workflows Between ProfitSword and Hotel Effectiveness

Every year, hotel teams spend countless hours ensuring their labor standards align with the labor budget. Finance sets expectations in one system, Operations rebuilds them in another, and Management does its best to reconcile the two.

Everyone is working hard, but they’re not always working from the same version of the truth. And when labor is your largest controllable expense, even small gaps between the budget and the plan can create outsized impacts on staffing, scheduling, and productivity.

Take a quick walkthrough of how ProfitSword budgets flow into Hotel Effectiveness with our interactive demo.

Clear, Integrated Labor Reporting Across an Entire Portfolio

When labor budgets and labor standards don’t start from the same place, each property ends up operating with its own interpretation of labor expectations. Some overspend without realizing it. Others understaff and risk service quality. Meanwhile, executives reviewing portfolio-level labor performance struggle to understand why numbers don’t align.

This lack of integration doesn’t just create confusion; it makes controlling costs much harder at scale.

When labor reporting is unified, the picture shifts immediately. Management can finally see a consistent view of labor performance across the entire portfolio, making it easier to uncover cost drivers, performance gaps, and opportunities to improve profitability across brands and regions.

Integrated reporting enables teams to:

Spot variances earlier
Identify overspend patterns across properties
Use reliable benchmarks for smarter decision-making
Track the impact of labor changes at both the property and portfolio level

When everyone is aligned on labor expectations and reporting, reducing labor costs stops being a property-by-property effort. It becomes a coordinated, portfolio-wide strategy.

The Real Impact on Hotel Teams

Connecting labor budgets to labor plans gives teams a reliable foundation to work from, especially when staffing decisions are guided by the actual business demand happening each day rather than fixed assumptions. It drives meaningful improvements like:

Time Back for Your Team

Rebuilding labor standards manually takes hours per property. Importing the budget eliminates that overhead and speeds up planning across the portfolio.

Better Accuracy From Day One

When labor standards reflect the approved budget, teams avoid mismatched assumptions and unnecessary rework.

Stronger Alignment Between Departments

Finance, Operations, and Management start with the same labor expectations, making conversations smoother and decisions clearer.

More Confidence in Staffing and Scheduling

Aligned labor plans help teams staff to the right levels earlier, improving productivity, service, and labor cost control.

Hotel companies like Hospitality America use ProfitSword and Hotel Effectiveness to empower managers and strengthen labor accountability across their portfolio. Read the full case study and discover how this works.

A Better Way to Build Hotel Labor Plans

When labor budgets and labor plans live in different systems, teams spend more time fixing the workflow than improving it. Finance, Operations, and Management all work hard, but mismatched numbers create delays, confusion, and extra work.

When labor plans start directly from the approved budget, everything changes. Finance sees its expectations carried forward accurately. Operations save hours of manual translation. Management gets clear guidance earlier.

Instead of reconciling discrepancies, teams can focus on creating a labor plan they trust and can execute with confidence.

Connecting budgets and labor plans isn’t just more efficient. It creates the alignment and clarity needed to perform better across an entire hotel portfolio.

Ready to try it out for yourself? Schedule time with our team to see how connected labor planning can improve accuracy and efficiency across your portfolio. Book a demo.

The post How Hotels Can Streamline Labor Planning Across Finance and Operations appeared first on Actabl.

Understanding How Hotels Adapted To The Labor Challenges of 2025

Sarah McCay Tams — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 16:49:50 +0000

Hotel leaders found themselves caught between revenue reductions and cost challenges in 2025, with both putting pressure on profit. Rising wage levels, higher headcounts, increased overtime, and pressure to improve productivity per occupied room all tested hotel operators.

Entering 2026, many of these challenges look set to follow hotel leaders into the new year.

We caught up with Shanell Marinuzzi, Account Manager at Actabl, and a former hotel General Manager, to discover what she saw as the biggest challenges, and tap into her years of hotel operations experience to learn about her tactics for success.

Here, she provides 4 tips for optimizing your labor strategies in 2026.

1. Make The Most of Your Hotel Team

Cross-training employees provides scheduling flexibility for hotel leaders and additional hours for staff willing to expand their skillset. It shows how much you appreciate your associates and helps them stay engaged with their work.

“We know that our employees are invaluable, and we want to make sure that we're retaining the top talent that we have, so that they don't move to the competition. Make sure that you're able to cross-train them to allow them the opportunity to have the hours that they need to support their family,” Shanell said.

One hotel group put cross-training to the test during a seasonal slowdown. Kitchen hours needed to be reduced, but the engineering team was short-staffed. Rather than cutting paychecks, the general manager offered kitchen staff the chance to train in basic room maintenance and pick up shifts there.

The result was steady hours for employees, stronger margins, improved room quality, and higher satisfaction for both staff and guests. The experience showed how flexible roles can protect morale while improving performance across the operation.

2. Put Labor Meetings On The Schedule

If you measure it, you can manage it. Shanell recommends putting a weekly labor meeting on the schedule in 2026.

“If this is something that you're not currently doing as a GM, it's a blind spot that could be affecting you as a company,” she explained.

Shanell’s recommendations for holding a weekly labor meeting are:

Host meetings on Wednesdays
Keep them to 15–30 minutes
Set up automatic reports
Review last week’s performance
Review next week’s schedules
Incentivise your top-performing teams

Also, consider if you have the right people in the right place at your hotel at the right time.

“You may have employees who are morning people. Are they in the morning shifts, or are they running your night shifts? That will affect your GSS. Make sure that you have the right people at the right place at the right time,” Shanell said.

Other topic items Shanell recommends get addressed at the weekly labor meeting include fixing missing or unpaired punches in the timekeeping system, considering the overtime risk for the week ahead, and considering housekeeping cleans by type.

If you are a Hotel Effectiveness user and are not taking advantage of weekly labor meetings, reach out to your CSM to learn how to facilitate them in the tool.

3. Set Goals To Drive Productivity

Ensure everyone on your team knows the hotel’s goals and where their focus needs to be.

“When I go in and train property leaders, I usually ask them to ask the front desk, 'What's the goal?’ Often, no one knows the goal. They just say, ‘We just have to sell more rooms’,” Shanell said.

“I challenge you to develop a SMART goal as it pertains to your HPOR or your CPOR in 2026 and really focus on that as a team.

“Whether you’re the GM and you're meeting with your leadership team on property, or you're a regional leader reporting to the owner, challenge your team to create those SMART goals, and if you attach an incentive, it will help your team hit that goal.”

4. Invest in Technology to Avoid Blind Spots

Productivity per occupied room emerged as hoteliers’ toughest challenge in 2025. As such, technology that exposes operational blind spots has become essential to controlling costs and aligning labor with demand.

“When I was a GM, there were a few things that I did to reduce costs. One is to use technology to see your blind spots. There are a lot of times when you don't know what you don't know if you can't see it in front of you,” she said.

Technology such as Actabl’s Hotel Effectiveness enables hotels to see those blind spots by bringing data from the RMS and PMS, allowing hotel leaders to adjust schedules according to demand.

Take control of your operations. Actabl gives you the tools to reduce expenses, plan with confidence, and build stronger teams. Request a Demo

The post Understanding How Hotels Adapted To The Labor Challenges of 2025 appeared first on Actabl.

A Hospitality Journey: Eric McCarthy-Zink on Disney Lessons, Leadership, and Scaling With Purpose

Sarah McCay Tams — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:07:10 +0000

From washing dishes at his local Chinese restaurant to Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of a global hospitality company, Eric McCarthy-Zink’s career is a shining example of the opportunities that can come from a career in hospitality.

He caught up with Josiah Mackenzie, VP of Marketing at Actabl, to talk about his career path, how Disney’s guest service mantra has always stayed with him, and what he still hopes to achieve with Hotel Equities, as he works with Actabl to help the company scale with purpose.

Josiah Mackenzie, VP of Marketing at Actabl: Eric, let’s start at the very beginning. How did you first get involved in hospitality?

Eric McCarthy-Zink, Chief Financial Officer at Hotel Equities: I grew up in a small rural town in Florida, and the “nice” restaurant in town was a white-tableclothed Chinese restaurant. With five kids in the family, eating out was rare, but once a year we’d go there. I was in awe. By the time I turned 16, I had one goal: get a job there. I started as a dishwasher, worked my way up to busboy, then waiter. My family loved it because I brought home fried rice and egg foo yong almost every night.

From there, I went to Disney. That was a totally different ball game; fine dining, banquets, catering. I ended up in entertainment, dancing in parades and doing shows. Disney taught me something that’s stuck my entire career: “The guest isn’t always right, but they’re always our guest.” That’s one of our values at Hotel Equities as well. That principle—treating people with care and respect—still drives me today.

I still take my family on a pilgrimage to Disney every year, whether it's one of their cruises, one of their hotels or the park or an adventure.

At one point, I was a front office manager at a very busy airport hotel. That taught me a lot about organization, and about guest interactions; that just because someone's upset doesn't mean they're upset at you. You need to find that balance.

Josiah: What drew you into the financial side of hospitality?

Eric: While I was in F&B at another hotel, the hotel’s Controller would lunch at the restaurant where I worked. I would wait on him. He noticed my end-of-shift paperwork was always spot on. When he needed someone to cover maternity leave, he asked me to help with Accounts Payable. It made sense to me; I liked the order. From there, I moved up in accounting, went back to school to get my accounting degree, earned my CPA, and built my career from there.

Josiah: Tell us about Hotel Equities today and your role as CFO.

Eric: Hotel Equities started about 35 years ago with Fred Cerrone. Fred Cerrone came up through the industry; he worked at hotels, helped build hotels, and then eventually he caught the attention of Mr Marriott and became one of Marriott’s first franchisees.

Mr Cerrone built his culture around “The guest isn't always right, but they're always our guest and everyone matters”. And, as I said, those are pretty big deals to me. I'm glad I ended up at this company.

We’ve gone through many evolutions. Over the years, we have formed strategic alliances with like-minded hotel companies across the U.S., Canada, and Latin America. One of the best things around doing these alliances is it gives us the opportunity to look for that gold nugget that each of them has, that one thing that they do, that process, that person, that software, that will better everyone in the organization. That’s how we first encountered Actabl’s ProfitSword, which one of our partners was using, and we expanded it across our entire enterprise.

As CFO, I handle far more than numbers on a spreadsheet. I work with banks, asset managers, institutional investors, regulators, and auditors. I oversee risk management, insurance, disaster response, and policy development. It's a lot of talking to executive boards, talking to people, and less around the numbers, and a lot of people lose sight of that.

Josiah: We’ve been hearing more discussion around profitability in hotels. At first glance, it may seem obvious—businesses need to make money. But why is profitability such an important focus right now, and what trends are you seeing that drive this conversation?

Eric: I would look at it more as trying to drive efficiency.

We're always going to have pressures from wage increases and recruiting costs and trying to find our share of the revenue bucket. That's always going to be there. Where we need to really focus is around efficiency. And that's where we look at our vendor partners, and we do call them partners because they have the same goals as us.

One of the reasons I went to Actabl [for Hotel Effectiveness] was because they got what we needed to do. They understood that we needed to manage our labor more efficiently. They understood that we need to be able to see numbers in real time from various sources.

Our wages are never going to go backwards. We’ve just got to manage it better and be more efficient with what we have. And that will go through the entire middle of the profit and loss statement.

Discover how Hotel Equities is enabling real-time ownership at the property level with Actabl. Discover more here: https://actabl.com/blog/hotel-equities-invests-in-actabl-to-scale-with-purpose/

The post A Hospitality Journey: Eric McCarthy-Zink on Disney Lessons, Leadership, and Scaling With Purpose appeared first on Actabl.

How Hotels Used Labor Efficiency to Protect Margins in 2025

Sarah McCay Tams — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:45:14 +0000

The 2025 Labor Costs and Trends Report from HotelData.com by Actabl examines how hotels navigated labor costs during the first nine months of the year. It reveals a year shaped by clear labor realities: wages remained high, forecasting accuracy mattered more than ever, and operators leaned on efficiency over headcount cuts. The data covers 5,000 hotels using Hotel Effectiveness.

US hotels entered 2025 expecting strong revenue and steady profit growth. Budgets projected rooms revenue to rise more than 14% year over year, even as ADR slipped. Operators planned for occupancy-driven growth and prepared for a year with higher labor and operating costs. By late summer, it became clear that revenue would fall short of growth expectations. Profitability now hinged on labor efficiency, not rate strategy or ambitious volume goals.

Improved Task Flow Reduced Hours

Hotels improved productivity across every major department. Guest Services hours per occupied room fell from 0.46 in January to 0.40 in September, a 13.5% reduction. Housekeeping followed a similar pattern, easing from 0.79 to 0.74 hours per occupied room. Management achieved the steepest drop, improving by nearly 15% over the same period. These gains reflect sharper forecasting, better task flow, and widespread use of labor optimization tools that aligned schedules with demand in real time.

Refined Position-level Productivity

Room attendants cut minutes per occupied room by 5.5% within the year, while general managers and assistant general managers improved by more than 14%. Guest service representatives and housepersons also saw double-digit efficiency gains. These results show that hotels did more than trim shifts. They redesigned workflows, refined service models, and made better use of every hour scheduled. Productivity improved even as wages rose by 3.7% to 5.9% year over year.

Efficiency Balanced Rising Salary Costs

Labor costs per occupied room increased, but the rise remained manageable due to stronger operational discipline. General managers posted the lowest increase in labor CPOR at 2%. Maintenance saw the highest growth at 11.2%, likely due to deferred upkeep and higher overall demand for engineering support. Housekeeping costs per room rose 9% year over year, but intra-year efficiency gains softened the impact. These patterns underline a central theme of 2025: higher wages did not guarantee higher labor costs if operators improved how and when staff worked.

Effective Scheduling Checked Overtime

Overtime provided another window into operator behavior. Hotels used overtime strategically, not reactively. Frontline roles such as room attendants and laundry attendants saw overtime shares rise, while leadership roles watched theirs decline. This suggests hotels used overtime as a flexible buffer for demand without allowing it to inflate salaried labor costs. Headcount rose 9% heading into the summer peak, then settled at a level still 4% higher than at the start of the year. Hotels rebuilt teams rather than cut them, then relied on scheduling and productivity to maintain margins.

Hotel Type Shaped Outcomes

Extended stay and select service hotels delivered the strongest labor alignment with demand. Full service hotels balanced productivity gains with broader service obligations. Resorts remained the most labor-intensive category, with hours per occupied room climbing during peak leisure months. These differences point to the value of hotel-type-specific labor forecasting for 2026.

Taken together, the data shows how operators protected margins in a softer revenue environment. They improved forecasting, reduced hours per occupied room, and extracted more value from each hour worked. They did this while paying higher wages and staffing more stable teams than in 2024.

Hotels that lead in 2026 will continue to integrate labor forecasting into business planning. The year ahead will reward operators who match labor to demand with speed, accuracy, and confidence.

Download the full 2025 Labor Costs & Trends Report from HotelData.com to explore the complete data set and learn how to strengthen your strategy for 2026.

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How Hotel Labor Management Will Evolve in 2026

Sarah McCay Tams — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 11:35:00 +0000

Labor will remain the largest and most complex cost for hotels in 2026. Rising wages, ongoing staffing shortages, and demand for flexible scheduling place pressure on operators to manage teams more accurately and with less administrative work.

The next wave of labor management technology will give hoteliers stronger control over costs, better insight into workforce needs, and more tools to support employees in a competitive talent market.

Here are our trends and predictions to look out for in 2026:

Smarter Talent Support Shapes Workforce Strategy

Staffing challenges are not going away. Hotels that invest in technology designed to support both operations and employee experience will stand out. Automation now plays a bigger role in shaping work environments. It handles routine tasks, balances workloads, reduces friction in scheduling, and gives teams more time to focus on guests. A stronger employee experience means lower turnover, higher engagement, and more service consistency. Modern tools also supply leaders with clearer data on productivity, staffing gaps, and opportunities to develop internal talent. As the labor market stays tight, these insights will matter more than ever.

Automation Elevates Workforce Management

The shift toward automation will accelerate in 2026. Hoteliers continue to seek systems that help attract and retain employees while improving financial performance. Comprehensive labor management platforms now support flexible scheduling, wage benchmarking, and streamlined communication. They also include time and attendance, operational workflows, and automated task assignments. The best systems match team members to the right roles, facilitate shift swaps, and manage both individual and pooled tips. This reduces administrative effort for managers and removes uncertainty for employees. Automation will become a core driver of predictability, fairness, and efficiency.

Consolidation Replaces Point Solutions

Large hotels often manage more than 180 technology platforms. Point solutions addressed individual problems, but they forced operators to manage disconnected systems. As the industry moves into its next phase, consolidation will continue. Hotels will adopt comprehensive platforms that integrate with PMS, POS, payroll, and financial systems. This shift reduces training time, streamlines workflows, and provides leaders with a unified view of performance. Better integrations also ensure more accurate data, which strengthens planning and helps operators respond faster to changing demand. A connected stack will replace fragmented tools as the industry standard.

A Hospitality-Built Approach to Labor Intelligence

Hotel Effectiveness was created for the specific needs of hospitality teams. It delivers the data and control operators need to forecast labor, manage schedules, and reduce costs by 5–15 percent without compromising service. In a market where topline gains are harder to capture, that level of precision directly improves NOI and asset value.

Now is the time for hotels to take a people-centric, data-led approach to labor management. The operators who embrace automation, integration, and insight will protect margins, elevate service, and build stronger teams.

For a deeper look at the solutions shaping labor strategy for 2026, download the Hotel Tech Report Buyers Guide on Labor Management Solutions for Hotels.

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The Future of Hotel Business Intelligence: 4 Key Shifts to Watch in 2026

Sarah McCay Tams — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 10:35:00 +0000

Hotel operators will enter 2026 with sharper expectations around data, speed, and system alignment. Business intelligence has moved from a supportive function to a core requirement for commercial and operational performance.

Fragmented systems, shifting demand, and leaner staffing models create pressure for clearer, faster insight across every property. The hotels that invest in connected intelligence will build stronger forecasts, drive better margins, and free teams to focus on guests rather than administration.

Real-Time Insight Becomes the Baseline

Hotels can no longer rely on yesterday’s figures to guide today’s actions. Demand shifts by the hour, labor availability changes throughout a shift, and spending can drift without early visibility. Real-time business intelligence will define the leaders of 2026. Operators will expect live occupancy, ADR, labor cost, and expense data in a unified dashboard that draws from PMS, POS, labor, and revenue systems.

This level of integration allows teams to act with confidence. They can adjust rates to capture sudden spikes, reassign staff when pace softens, or catch overspending before it damages profitability. As volatility continues across markets, immediate insight will separate efficient operators from those reacting too late.

Digital Audit Automation Accelerates

The night audit has long been a routine that slows teams with printing, filing, matching, and reconciling. Automation will continue to reshape this process in 2026. BI-enabled tools now produce digital packets, route them for approval, and store clean records without binders or paper trails, digitizing the night audit.

This shift delivers strong gains in accuracy and control. It also returns hours to auditors and managers who once spent nights or early mornings managing reports. Hotels will rely on automated audits to tighten cost management and improve transparency, while redirecting staff time toward revenue-driving or guest-facing activities. As more operators adopt automation, manual audits will feel outdated and inefficient.

Data Access Expands Beyond Corporate Teams

Self-service business intelligence will grow from a trend to an expectation in 2026. Managers once depended on static reports produced by corporate offices or IT teams. That delay slowed problem-solving and kept valuable insight locked at the top of the organization.

The new model puts data directly in the hands of property leaders. They can build dashboards, adjust views, and analyze performance on demand. This encourages faster decisions, clearer accountability, and more precise action across departments. When teams closest to operations control their data, they respond with speed and accuracy that improves both revenue and the guest experience.

A Unified View Becomes a Strategic Advantage

ProfitSword was designed by hoteliers to solve the problems created by disconnected data. It brings PMS, POS, labor, and financial information into a single real-time view, giving operators consistency across every property. With this foundation, teams build stronger forecasts, streamline reporting, and better align revenue and expenses.

At Actabl, we equip owners, operators, and managers with the clarity to navigate uncertainty and seize opportunity. When hotels remove friction from their data, they gain the control needed to run exceptional properties.

For a deeper look at the solutions shaping the next phase of hotel analytics, download the Hotel Tech Report Buyers Guide on Business Intelligence Solutions for Hotels.

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A Hospitality Journey: How Hospitality America’s CEO Ben Campbell Makes Work a Team Sport

Sarah McCay Tams — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 11:46:20 +0000

In hospitality, growth is never just about adding more properties—it’s about building a culture that attracts talent, inspires teams, and supports exceptional guest experiences. Few leaders embody this balance as clearly as Ben Campbell, CEO of Hospitality America.

In this conversation with Josiah Mackenzie, VP of Marketing at Actabl, Ben shares his journey from college athletics to hotel sales director to CEO, the core values driving his company’s culture, and how technology helps his teams stay efficient and engaged while keeping people at the heart of the business.

Josiah Mackenzie: I’ve always loved hearing about people's journeys into the hospitality industry. How did you get started in the world of hospitality?

Ben Campbell: I graduated from college in 2009, not a great time to be looking for a job! I played baseball and was an athlete my entire life. I found that when I was part of someone's great experience, whether at a restaurant, a sporting event, or a hotel, I felt a sense of fulfillment from it. It just became something that I gravitated towards, and I became addicted to.

Josiah: What keeps you working in hospitality?

Ben: I'm a problem solver. What we deal with every day, whether it's with people or things that happen internally or externally, there are always problems to solve. I've always wanted to leave a lasting impact on any business, person, or team I'm a part of. Hospitality was a perfect fit for me, and it remains so.

Josiah: Is there a piece of advice that you received along your journey that has stayed with you?

Ben: My dad ran a business in Greenville, South Carolina, while I was growing up. He would always say, ‘Treat it like it's yours.’ My mom, on the other hand, would say, ‘Leave it better than you found it.’ Those were core principles that were instilled in me when I was growing up. No matter what team, company, or people I lead today, I always want to leave it better than I found it.

Josiah: Can you tell us a little bit about Hospitality America and the strategy behind it?

Ben: Hospitality America was founded in 1995. Our founder, Chris Cargen, opened two hotels within 30 days of each other. One in South Florida and one in East Tennessee, and the company was born. Today, we operate 20 hotels for five different clients; mostly, our portfolio is located east of the Mississippi. We are still down in South Florida; that's still a client of ours. We want to grow, and a good target for us is going to be in that 40-45 hotel range.

Josiah: What was your path to the CEO role?

Ben: I've been with our company for 10 years. When I started, I was a director of sales of a 115-room Hampton Inn. I transitioned to general manager, then corporate director of operations, then to COO, and now to CEO.

Through that journey, I've seen what my team members have gone through, what I went through as a team member, and really focused on how we’re going to attract the next talent or the next leaders and how we’re going to retain the truly talented individuals that we've spent the past decade cultivating and growing. That became my first mission.

I had to grow our team, and I felt an overwhelming sense of, ‘How do I make sure that people are the fit?’ I needed to objectively define that, and we did. Our core values are passion, excellence, adaptable, community, and humble. We call it PEACH. Everybody who walks around in our company, especially our leaders, asks, ‘Are we being PEACH today?’ And we question, how can we leverage that to be better every single day?

Josiah: How does technology help you to deliver on PEACH?

Ben: We've been a user of ProfitSword for a long time, but as new products have come on, like Hotel Effectiveness and Transcendent, it then becomes, ‘How are we leveraging the entire ecosphere of our tech stack to align with our strategy to make sure that we're as efficient as possible?’

For example, our Hotel Effectiveness labor plans help us understand the purpose of that day and how we're going to execute our job.

The associate engagement with Transcendent enables our engineering teams to seek to win; they want to be the best, want to make sure they're the number one.

We all know in our industry that labor is hard to find, so when we find highly talented individuals, we want to make them as efficient as possible. The talent that we're trying to recruit for our hotels wants to be trained better; they want to understand the full scope of what their job entails. We're doing that throughout the entire environment with Actabl, from our forecasting on ProfitSword to Hotel Effectiveness and Transcendent.

Josiah: What advice would you give to other hotel leaders considering a tech investment?

Ben: I would recommend doing a deep dive into what's working and what's not. There are a lot of new technologies that are coming out that can accomplish the same thing. One thing that we assessed was the relationship between ProfitSword and Sage Intacct. The big thing with any tech is how they all interact and how they all engage with one another.

Then, ask where the pain points are with your teams? What is wasting time in our accounting department? What is causing time that could be automated with the ultimate tech stack? There's something out there that Actabl can help with. With Sage Intacct and ProfitSword, it's only going to get better, making the end user even more efficient.

Josiah: What are your next steps for Hospitality America, and how does the company culture support this?

Ben: What’s great about where we are as a company is that we're a very healthy company. We have a great culture, we have a great vision, but I'm not looking to just absolutely grow at an exponential rate. We have a great client base today, they're growing as well, and we grow with them. For us, it's about that strategic growth. By doing that, we'll really keep hold of our culture that we've built. Having PEACH is really our north star; that's who we are. People, process, and results are our pillars; that's what we do, but who we are is really about passion, excellence, an adaptable community, and humility. I think that if we keep that at our core and everyone understands who we are and what we expect when they come into our organization, I think we'll be great.

To end, I would just like to say thank you to our team. For the second year in a row, we are being recognized by USA Today as a top workplace, and that recognition brings a lot of pride to many of our associates. It's not just us recognizing them; it's USA Today, a major publication in the United States, recognizing us, which is cool. I want to say congratulations to them, and the best is yet to come.

Discover how Hospitality America streamlined operations and strengthened culture with Actabl. Read the case study now.

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What Is Hotel Business Intelligence? The Ultimate Guide to Data-Driven Hospitality Management

actabl — Thu, 20 Nov 2025 14:01:29 +0000

Today, hoteliers are facing pressure from every direction: rising labor costs, complex distribution channels, and sky-high guest expectations. Making the right decision is harder than ever, and "gut instinct" is no longer enough.

Hotels are swimming in data from their Property Management System (PMS), Point-of-Sale (POS) systems, accounting platforms, and labor tools. The problem is that this data is hard to consolidate and even harder to normalize.

This is where hotel business intelligence comes in.

What Is Hotel Business Intelligence?

At its core, hotel business intelligence (BI) is the practice of:

Consolidating all your hotel’s disconnected operational, financial, sales, and labor data.
Normalizing this data into a single, "apples-to-apples" view.
Presenting it in real-time dashboards and automated reports so leaders can make faster, more accurate, and more profitable decisions.

In short, hotel BI moves your entire team from operating in the past—spending hours manually pulling reports to see what happened—to managing in the present. It’s the difference between being reactive and proactive.

The Core Problem BI Solves: Disconnected Systems

To understand why BI is so critical, you only need to look at the data chaos in a typical hotel operation.

Your PMS (like Opera, Cloudbeds, or Mews) has your room revenue and occupancy.
Your POS (like Micros or Toast) has your restaurant and bar sales.
Your Accounting platform has your P&L and balance sheet.
Your Labor Tool (like Hotel Effectiveness, ADP, or a scheduling app) has your payroll and staffing data.
Your STR reports have your competitor (comp set) performance.

Without a BI platform, a general manager or above-property leader has to manually log into 5+ systems, export 5+ Excel files, and try to stitch them together. The data is never real-time, it's prone to human error, and it's a massive waste of your team's most valuable resource: time.

The Core Components of a Modern Hotel BI Platform

When we talk about "what is hotel business intelligence," we're really talking about a set of powerful capabilities. An effective BI solution is built on these key components.

1. Consolidated & Normalized Data

This is the foundation. A BI platform automatically pulls data from all your different systems (PMS, POS, labor, etc.) and normalizes it. This means it creates a "single source of truth," ensuring that "Total Food Revenue" means the exact same thing in every report, for every property in your portfolio.

2. Real-Time Dashboards & Portfolio Visibility

Instead of static, day-old reports, BI provides live dashboards. A General Manager can see revenue, labor costs, and guest satisfaction at a glance—right now. For management companies, this is a game-changer. An executive can see real-time performance and benchmarking across their entire portfolio, filtering by region, brand, or property.

3. Automated Reporting

This component alone saves hundreds of hours. BI automates the generation and delivery of critical reports (like daily GM reports, P&L summaries, or pacing reports). What used to take a manager hours each week is now done in minutes, or even automatically emailed to the leadership team every morning.

4. Forecasting & Budgeting Tools

Strong BI isn't just about what happened; it's about what will happen. Modern platforms include tools for forecasting and budgeting. Because the BI system already has all your actual, real-time data, you can instantly compare your performance against your forecast and budget, identify variances, and make adjustments on the fly—not at the end of the month when it's too late.

5. Labor Intelligence

Labor is the largest controllable expense in any hotel. A true BI solution integrates your labor data, allowing you to see your scheduled-versus-actual labor spend in real-time. You can track productivity (e.g., hours per occupied room) and make immediate staffing decisions to control costs and protect margins before you miss your budget.

6. Deep Financial Drill-Down

BI allows you to go beyond the top-line number. If you see that F&B revenue is down, you can click to drill down. You can see which outlet is underperforming, which menu item isn't selling, and which server has the lowest check average. This is the "story behind the numbers" that allows for true operational management.

Explore the tools shaping the next wave of hotel intelligence. Download your free copy of the 2026 Hotel Tech Report Business Intelligence Software Buyers Guide

What Hotel BI Looks Like in Practice

When a hotel or management company implements a BI platform, the entire operation changes.

Before BI: Managers wait until the 5th of the next month for a P&L report to see if they missed their labor budget.
After BI: The GM gets an automated alert on their phone at 1 PM on Tuesday that housekeeping labor is tracking 10% over forecast, allowing them to adjust the afternoon schedule.
Before BI: The corporate team spends the first week of every month chasing down GMs for their manual Excel reports, which are often full of errors.
After BI: The corporate team logs into a single portfolio-wide dashboard to see standardized, 100% accurate data from every hotel.
Before BI: Onboarding a new hotel to the portfolio means weeks of training and trying to integrate its messy data.
After BI: The new hotel's systems are "plugged in" to the BI platform, and it is instantly aligned with the company's standard reporting and forecasting structure.

The Benefits: From "Gut Feel" to Data-Driven

Implementing hotel business intelligence delivers clear, measurable benefits:

Massive Time Savings: Eliminates hundreds of hours per year of manual data entry and report-building.
More Accurate and Timely Decisions: Teams base decisions on facts and real-time data, not assumptions.
Tighter Labor Control: Provides daily, real-time visibility into your largest expense, allowing for instant adjustments.
Improved Transparency and Accountability: When everyone is looking at the same, accurate numbers, teams are aligned and can take ownership of their performance.
Portfolio-Level Consistency: Ensures every property is forecasting, budgeting, and reporting in the exact same way, making the portfolio easier to manage and scale.

Frequently Asked Questions for Hotel Owners and Management Companies

Q: How does BI work if my portfolio has multiple brands, such as those from Marriott, Hilton, Choice, and also independents?

A: This is one of the main problems BI is built to solve. A strong BI platform connects to all of your different Property Management Systems (PMS) and Point-of-Sale (POS) systems, regardless of the brand. It then normalizes the data, translating each brand's unique chart of accounts and data fields into your company's single, standardized format. For the first time, you can get a true "apples-to-apples" comparison of RevPAR, labor costs, or F&B margins across your entire portfolio, not just within a single brand.

Q: What does "data normalization" actually mean for a multi-property portfolio?

A: Normalization is the process of mapping data from different sources to one standard. A classic example is the P&L. Your Hilton-branded hotel might code "Room Service Revenue" as 4010-01, while your independent hotel's accounting system calls it "IRR - Food." A BI platform maps both of these to your single corporate line item, like "In-Room Dining Revenue." This allows you to roll up a true, consolidated P&L for your entire portfolio instead of trying to manually consolidate dozens of non-standard spreadsheets.

Q: We are continually acquiring or divesting hotels. How does BI help with onboarding and growth at scale?

A: A strong BI platform gives your organization a stable, repeatable framework for adding new hotels. Once your chart of accounts and reporting structure are mapped, bringing new properties into the portfolio becomes fast and predictable. Commonwealth Hotels, for example, described this as one of the biggest advantages: after completing their initial setup, “the scalability of it is endless because now we can just keep adding so many more hotels without any kind of work.” New properties can quickly adopt the same reporting, forecasting, and financial visibility model, providing regional leaders with oversight and helping new GMs operate in line with the company’s standards. This is what allows hotel ownership groups and management companies to scale without adding complexity.

Conclusion: BI Is Now a Requirement, Not a Luxury

As hotel operations become more complex and margins face constant pressure, business intelligence software is no longer optional.

Hotels that still rely on spreadsheets, manual reporting, and disconnected systems are falling behind. The industry now runs on real-time visibility, precise labor control, and portfolio-level insight. That is what hotel business intelligence delivers.

For a deeper look at the technology transforming hotel decision-making, access the 2026 Business Intelligence Buyers Guide at actabl.com/resources/2026-business-intelligence-buyers-guide

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Q3 2025 Hotel Profitability: Margins Hold as Costs Rise

Sarah McCay Tams — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 14:22:13 +0000

U.S. hoteliers demonstrated once again the growing complexity in managing the delicate balance between revenue growth and cost control, as revealed by the latest HotelData.com’s Q3 2025 Hotel Profitability Report. Based on performance insights from thousands of hotels using Actabl, the report shows that while top-line performance softened in some markets, profit margins remained resilient, a testament to more agile, disciplined operations.

Revenue Growth Eases but Profits Hold

Hoteliers started the year with optimism and expectations for revenue growth, albeit not at the levels seen in previous years. However, while demand remained stable, growth expectations had to be reset.

ADR averaged US$186.47 in the first nine months of the year, 4.9% below budget in Q3 and 3.8% below budget YTD.

RevPAR averaged US$119.22 in the first nine months of the year, amounting to 10.8% below budget in Q3 and 9.3% below budget YTD.

However, gross operating profit (GOP) margins held firm. For the first nine months, the GOP for all hotels averaged 37.7%. This meant that the GOP margin fell 1.5 percentage points below budget in Q3 and just 0.8 points below budget YTD.

In practical terms, this means that while revenue gains have plateaued, profitability hasn’t eroded; a significant shift from earlier recovery years when rising costs outpaced rate growth.

Regional and Segment Performance: The Midscale Advantage

HotelData.com introduced new tile maps for its Q3 2025 reporting. These identified the changes in performance at a state level. In terms of RevPAR, tourism hotspots such as California, Florida, and New York performed well, while states in the Midwest and West saw most months in decline.

When considering gross operating profit per available room (GOPPAR), Nevada and Hawaii were the only two states to see consistent positive performance. California and New York also enjoyed high GOPPAR. However, hotels in the Midwest have had 12 months of below-average performance.

The Q3 Profitability Report data also highlights diverging performance across asset classes. Luxury and independent hotels performed strongly in ADR and RevPAR. However, it was the middle of the field that proved the most profitable. Upper midscale hotels reported the highest GOP% of all chain scales. These operators, already experienced in lean staffing and simplified service models, were well positioned to maintain profitability in a flatter demand environment.

Profitability Outlook: Cautious Optimism into Q4 and 2026

Looking ahead, the industry enters Q4 on a stable footing. Rate growth is expected to moderate further, but profitability fundamentals remain strong thanks to a more sophisticated approach to cost management.

Operational discipline must continue if hoteliers are to end 2025 with healthy GOP margins despite macroeconomic uncertainty.

Download the Full Report

Explore deeper insights, market breakdowns, and detailed GOPPAR trends in the full HotelData.com Q3 2025 Hotel Profitability Report: https://actabl.com/resources/q3-2025-profit-report/

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Understanding The Hotel KPIs That Drive Profit, Efficiency, and Guest Experience

Sarah McCay Tams — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 14:47:18 +0000

Hotel industry leaders rely on clear, accurate data to guide decisions that shape profitability and guest satisfaction.

Understanding and tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) helps hotel operators measure success, forecast effectively, and make confident decisions that drive performance.

Whether you are new to hospitality or a seasoned professional, it’s easy to get lost in the sea of hotel terms, acronyms, and performance metrics.

This glossary defines the most essential hotel KPIs used across finance, operations, and guest service, empowering you to benchmark, forecast, and act with precision.

Core Hotel Performance Metrics (A–Z)

ADR (Average Daily Rate)

Average room revenue earned per sold room. ADR shows how effectively a property prices its rooms and adjusts rates to demand.

ARI (Average Rate Index)

Compares a hotel’s ADR to its competitive set. Used alongside the Market Penetration Index (MPI) to assess pricing strength and positioning.

AVLOS (Average Length of Stay)

Tracks how long guests stay on average. Longer stays often improve efficiency and reduce housekeeping costs.

BAR (Best Available Rate)

BAR is the lowest unrestricted rate a hotel offers to the public for a specific room type on a specific night.

Brand QA (Quality Assurance)

Evaluates a property’s adherence to brand standards and operational consistency. Strong QA scores support guest satisfaction and brand integrity.

Comp Set

The competitive set of the hotel. This is a group of hotels that the hotel benchmarks against. These could be properties that are very local to the property, or properties with a similar offering in a wider area.

COGS (Cost of Goods Sold)

Represents the direct cost of goods and services, including food, beverage, and supplies. A core measure of profitability in F&B operations.

CPOR (Cost per Occupied Room)

Calculates the cost of servicing each occupied room. Lower CPOR contributes directly to higher operating margins.

EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization)

A key measure of operating profitability, used by owners and investors to compare financial performance across hotels.

Employee Turnover Rate

Tracks the percentage of staff who leave over a set period. Reducing turnover improves service consistency and reduces hiring costs.

Energy Cost per Occupied Room

Measures utility costs relative to occupancy. Managing this KPI supports both sustainability goals and cost efficiency.

F&B Cost Percentage

Total food and beverage costs divided by F&B revenue. This ratio reveals margin health in restaurant and banquet operations.

Flow-Through Percentage

Shows how much incremental revenue converts into profit. High flow-through indicates strong expense control and operational discipline.

GOPPAR (Gross Operating Profit per Available Room)

Gross operating profit divided by available rooms. A critical profitability metric that reveals how efficiently revenue is converted into profit.

GSS (Guest Satisfaction Score)

Aggregates survey, review, and feedback data into one measure of guest experience quality. A strong GSS correlates with repeat stays and higher RevPAR.

MPR (Minutes per Room)

Average time required to clean or service a room. Lower MPR means better labor productivity and cost efficiency.

MPI (Market Penetration Index)

Compares a hotel’s occupancy to its comp set. An MPI above 100 means stronger market share and demand capture.

Net ADR Yield

Net room revenue after commissions and discounts, divided by gross ADR. It measures distribution efficiency and OTA impact on profitability.

NOI (Net Operating Income)

Total revenue minus operating expenses, before taxes and financing. NOI reflects a property’s true operating performance.

OCC (Occupancy)

Percentage of available rooms sold during a specific period. A fundamental indicator of demand strength and revenue opportunity.

OTB (On the Books)

Represents confirmed future bookings and group reservations. Used to forecast occupancy, revenue, and labor needs.

RevPAR (Revenue per Available Room)

Calculated as ADR divided by occupancy. One of the most important hotel revenue KPIs, reflecting how effectively a property fills rooms at profitable rates.

RevPAR Index

Compares a property’s RevPAR to competitors. A score above 100 indicates market outperformance. Often also called RGI (Revenue Generation Index).

TEN/DEF

Distinguishes between tentative and definite room bookings for a group.

TRevPAR (Total Revenue per Available Room)

Measures total property revenue (rooms, F&B, spa, parking, etc.) per available room. This KPI gives a complete picture of property profitability.

Turning Data into Profit and Performance

Hotel data creates impact only when it drives action. By connecting KPIs across revenue, labor, and guest experience, hotel leaders can identify opportunities, allocate resources efficiently, and strengthen profitability.

With Actabl’s hotel intelligence platform, US hotel operators can bring together insights from every department to:

When every KPI connects to a clear goal, data turns from information into impact, driving smarter, more profitable decisions across the portfolio.

Book your Actabl demo today to discover more about how our platform could boost your hotel business performance.

The post Understanding The Hotel KPIs That Drive Profit, Efficiency, and Guest Experience appeared first on Actabl.

A Hospitality Journey: How Frank Morris Built a Career on Pizza, People, and Profitability

Sarah McCay Tams — Fri, 24 Oct 2025 15:59:36 +0000

With nearly three decades in hospitality, Frank Morris has built a career grounded in growth, mentorship, and a love for the industry’s people-first culture. Today, as Regional Manager at Raymond Management Company, Frank oversees nine hotel properties while supporting profitability initiatives and guiding teams through daily challenges.

In this conversation with Actabl’s Head of Editorial, Sarah McCay Tams, he reflects on his “accidental” entry into hotels, why he has stayed, how he uses technology as a tool, and what advice he has for hoteliers looking ahead.

Sarah McCay Tams, Head of Editorial, Actabl: Frank, how did you first get into hospitality?

Frank Morris, Regional Manager, Raymond Management Company: It was an accident. I was in high school and working in a pizza restaurant; it didn’t really pay much, but I loved it. Someone suggested I try this “hotel thing,” and I had no idea what that meant.

I started working at a larger hotel in Boise in food and beverage, banquets, catering, and anything ‘restaurant’. I loved it. In the beginning, I thought, “You’re going to pay me to basically work out all day? I’m cool with that.” The pay was better, I had fun with my friends, and I felt accomplished when the day was over. I enjoyed it, and I never stopped.

Sarah: At what point did you realize it would become a long-term career?

Frank: At first, I didn’t. I figured I’d do it as long as I kept growing and had opportunities to improve. Now, almost 27 years later, that has never stopped. What keeps me here is giving back. Mentors over the years took the time to show me how they did things, and I try to do the same for the next generation. Supporting people, creating processes, and influencing how our company moves forward keeps me doing it.

Sarah: Tell us about Raymond Management Company and what makes it special.

Frank: Raymond Management started in 1978 with Jeff and Judi Raymond. They began in restaurants, then moved into hotels — Super 8s, Hampton Inns, and eventually more than a dozen different brands.

We’ve grown over the years, but what’s interesting is that no matter how large we’ve gotten, we’ve never lost who we are at the core. There’s always been talk of “how big is too big?” But the answer is: we’ve never found that ceiling.

I joined in 2011 when we had around 20 hotels. Now we’re at 36. Through that growth, people have stayed. We’ve got folks who’ve been with us 20, 30, even 40 years. That’s a testament to our culture and commitment to excellence.

Sarah: What does your role as Regional Manager look like today?

Frank: There are four regional managers, and we each support between 8–10 properties. I currently oversee nine. It’s a structure that works really well — it keeps us busy but not so overloaded that we can’t provide good support.

We also have focus areas. Mine is profitability. So, I’m the administrator and main champion for Hotel Effectiveness, but I also support purchasing and procurement.

One thing I like is that my office is in a hotel. I’m not camped out in a cubicle far from the action. Being on-site helps me stay connected to the feel and vibe of a hotel and stay current with things.

Sarah: How did Hotel Effectiveness become part of your work?

Frank: We started using it in 2018. Before that, we had an internal process built on spreadsheets. They worked for a while, but they weren’t efficient. They were subject to data errors, and they required a lot of resources to stay up to date.

Hotel Effectiveness gave us real-time metrics and reporting. I’m analytical by nature, so I adapted to it quickly. It gave me the ability to spot trends and see the data in real time. That excitement carried over as I became the administrator for the system, and we’ve driven usage to very high levels.

Sarah: You’ve made reducing overtime a focus. Why does that matter so much?

Frank: Labor is our biggest expense. For the last few years, a lot of the focus has been on trying to find efficiencies within the workplace and restructure some of our staffing models. We decided to set a goal of reducing overtime to 1% of total hours. Month after month, we’ve been able to maintain it.

Even trimming just 1% of overtime makes a huge difference across multiple properties. It adds a lot to the bottom line.

But it’s not just financial. Associates get more accurate schedules. They aren’t being pushed past their limits with too much overtime. People thrive when they have the right balance. With consistency, you can achieve balance, and we work hard to provide that.

Sarah: What does that balance mean for your associates and guests?

Frank: It makes a big difference.

If you've got a team that is well-balanced, that’s right-sized, that has enough hours, so they're not having to juggle a second job, but they're also not doing too many hours for you, then they serve the guest better.

Sarah: What advice would you give hoteliers considering new technology?

Frank: Have a strategy and stick to it. Be clear about your goals and your expectations for how the system should be used.

These tools can be overwhelming because there’s so much data. If you don’t set clear expectations, people will either get lost or just check the box without using it effectively.

My advice is: keep it simple. Getting good at the basics first gets you a long way. Once people are comfortable, you can add more. And when you do that consistently, there’s no ceiling. There’s no stopping you.

Want to learn more about how Raymond Management Company empowers its teams and boosts results with Actabl? Read the full story here

The post A Hospitality Journey: How Frank Morris Built a Career on Pizza, People, and Profitability appeared first on Actabl.

Destination AI Summit 2025: A Turning Point for Hospitality

Sarah McCay Tams — Fri, 03 Oct 2025 14:09:49 +0000

By Drew Potter, Account Executive at Actabl

The Destination AI Hospitality Summit brought together hoteliers, technology leaders, and innovators to discuss the future of artificial intelligence in our industry. The energy was unmistakable: AI is no longer an abstract possibility. It is here, shaping how we engage with guests, optimize operations, and compete in a rapidly evolving landscape.

For hoteliers, the message was clear. Those who act decisively now by addressing data fragmentation, building AI literacy, and choosing the right technology partners will define the next era of hospitality.

The Sense of Urgency

A striking takeaway from the summit was the growing urgency around AI adoption. According to research shared at the event, 61% of hoteliers believe AI will have an impact within the next year, while 73% expect it to be significant or transformative overall. This mirrors a broader trend: consumer use of AI for travel has surged more than 1,200% year-over-year. Guests are adopting these tools faster than hotels, raising expectations and compressing the timeline for response.

The industry is at a point similar to the rise of online travel agencies (OTAs). Those who adapted early to the OTA shift gained advantages that are still felt today. The same is likely to be true with AI.

Hoteliers are not standing still. More than 90% of survey respondents expect IT spending to increase in the coming years, with efficiency, guest experience, and revenue identified as top priorities. This willingness to invest underscores the belief that AI can deliver measurable results.

Confronting the Fragmented Tech Stack

Despite the momentum, a recurring theme was the fragmented state of hotel technology. Many operators are experimenting with siloed AI applications: one for guest messaging, another for revenue management, and yet another for hiring. This piecemeal approach creates data silos that limit personalization, undermine forecasting accuracy, and stall efficiency gains.

The solution lies in consolidation. A unified platform enables data to flow seamlessly across departments, allowing AI to deliver insights that improve every aspect of the guest journey. At Actabl, this is already at the core of our strategy. ProfitSword’s consolidated data engine provides the foundation for AI-driven applications, ensuring that insights are holistic, accurate, and actionable.

At Actabl, our unified approach directly counters the fragmentation that holds many operators back. By consolidating data across finance, operations, and revenue management, we empower hotels to deploy AI in a way that is both scalable and trustworthy.

High-Impact Use Cases

The summit showcased how AI is being applied to solve critical hospitality challenges today:

Guest Experience and Engagement: AI can automate routine communications, enabling personalized, timely responses that free staff to focus on high-value in-person interactions. In luxury markets, expectations escalate immediately once personalization is introduced, making data-driven insights essential.
Revenue Management: AI-powered systems are delivering measurable results by adjusting rates dynamically based on forward-looking indicators like flight cancellations or local event demand.
Operational Efficiency: From automating billing requests in contact centers to streamlining interview scheduling in hiring, AI is demonstrating real ROI in reducing friction behind the scenes.

Each of these use cases shares a common thread: success depends on clean, connected data.

Building Trust and Literacy

A challenge that emerged from the summit is not just technological, but cultural. Up to 95% of developed AI agents remain undeployed due to concerns about trust and reliability. Hotels must treat AI management like talent management, providing training and continuous evaluation.

Equally important is preparing teams for the transition. Change management is essential. AI will not replace hospitality jobs, but professionals who use AI effectively will replace those who do not. That requires investment in literacy programs, cross-training, and building a culture of confidence around AI adoption.

Looking Ahead

The following 18 months will be decisive. Industry experts predict that by 2026, profitability metrics and KPIs in hospitality will shift entirely to reflect AI’s role in operations. Hotels that delay risk falling behind in ways that may be impossible to recover from.

For hoteliers unsure where to begin, the answer is simple: start with data. Once data is unified, the potential for AI-driven insights expands dramatically.

The Destination AI Summit underscored that we are entering a new phase: from experimentation to execution. AI will not replace the essence of hospitality, the human connection that defines great service. But it will reshape how hotels operate, compete, and grow.

The winners in this transformation will be those who act now to unify their data, invest in their people, and choose partners who can deliver on AI’s promise.

Hospitality is entering a new era powered by AI. Actabl helps hotels stay ahead by unifying data, elevating efficiency, and enhancing guest experiences. See the future in action. Book your demo with us today.

The post Destination AI Summit 2025: A Turning Point for Hospitality appeared first on Actabl.

Future-Ready Hospitality: Hotel Equities Invests in the Actabl Platform to Scale with Purpose

Sarah McCay Tams — Thu, 02 Oct 2025 14:37:54 +0000

Hotel Equities is a purpose-driven hospitality company with a growing global portfolio and a deeply rooted, people-first culture. As a hospitality management and development company overseeing hundreds of hotels across the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, and Latin America, Hotel Equities is no stranger to complexity. The company manages a diverse portfolio of full-service, select-service, independent, lifestyle, and resort assets, and its operational philosophy is refreshingly clear: invest in people, lead with integrity, and equip teams with what they need to succeed.

That’s why, when Hotel Equities set out to explore how technology could enhance operations, the executive team didn’t just look for another vendor; they sought a true partner. Their decision to invest in Actabl’s technology reflects a larger strategy: driving efficiency, ownership, and growth through scalable, hospitality-specific tools designed to evolve alongside the business.

“We continue to invest in smart technology,” said David Rosenberg, Executive Vice President of Operations at Hotel Equities. “As we determine our path forward, it’s always with the end in mind—to help our teams perform better, spend more time with their guests and associates, and deliver the returns for our external stakeholders.”

A Strategic Shift: From Legacy Tools to Scalable Solutions

As Hotel Equities grew its portfolio and deepened its partnerships with ownership groups, its leaders recognized a hard truth: their existing tech stack needed to be enhanced to support future growth. To maximize profits and operational efficiencies, the company sought a clear, accurate picture of its operations to quickly spot where it was excelling or had an opportunity to improve. The leadership team also wanted to right-size labor to comprehensively support staff and guests. The manual systems, siloed spreadsheets, and disparate platforms that had carried them this far were no longer enough.

“As technology evolves, we’re looking for new tools, new resources to continue to enhance performance,” explained Peter Tziahanas, also EVP of Operations.

Scalability was key. Hotel Equities needed a system that could support a diverse portfolio of brands, locations, and team structures, while maintaining consistency and clarity in reporting and operations. Actabl's purpose-built tools for hotels, including ProfitSword for business intelligence and Hotel Effectiveness for labor management, offered the flexibility, integrations, and data visibility required to meet those demands.

“As inflation continues to squeeze operating margins, we needed a better way in real time to allow our teams to manage labor with the shrinking margins we have. Any additional leverage we can take through the use of technology can reap huge rewards for our owners, our company, and our team,” he added.

Built for Hospitality, Backed by Partnership

The Actabl team provided the documentation, integrations, and user support that helped the Hotel Equities team get onboarded quickly and confidently. The tools were woven into daily operations and decision-making, even integrating third-party vendors for a custom-fit solution.

“We don’t want just a vendor, we want a partner,” said Eric McCarthy-Zink, Hotel Equities’ CFO. “Actabl’s team is just that. When we requested a new interface to better suit our needs, the Actabl board, including their CEO, said, ‘On it.’ That shows they are in it with us. Our success is their success.”

For a portfolio that represents multiple brands and employs thousands of associates, that alignment was crucial.

“Actabl has approached it through the lens of a hospitality company, making implementation, activation, and daily use seamless,” said EVP of Operations Rosenberg. “It gives our teams, at every level, a single source of truth.”

Enabling Real-Time Ownership at the Property Level

At the core of Hotel Equities' investment is a belief in empowering its general managers and field teams to operate like business owners. Rather than top-down mandates, the company encourages autonomy, entrepreneurship, and accountability at every hotel.

“We want our general managers to own their business truly,” Rosenberg asserted. “We want them to be entrepreneurial. We look at the tools we’re using through the lens of: Does it make the general manager a better businessperson? Does it drive results?”

Actabl’s tools deliver real-time, centralized data that allows GMs to make mindful, future-forward decisions. Labor forecasting, performance tracking, and budget alignment are no longer abstract concepts; they’re daily practices, grounded in accessible insights.

“Having access to data in one single source allows them [GMs] to make real-time decisions,” Tziahanas said.

With accurate business intelligence and labor management, operators can trust their numbers. That confidence enables faster, more strategic decisions, allowing teams to solve issues before they grow and seize opportunities without delay.

Hotel Equities’ shift has brought significant benefits:

Improved scheduling
More accurate forecasting
Better alignment between operations and financial outcomes

Transparency Translates to Confidence

Hotel Equities fosters strong, transparent relationships with internal teams, ownership groups, and investors. The company understands that trust is built through communication and shared visibility, and Actabl’s platform enables that critical transparency.

“We believe in transparency across the entire organization, and that transparency is critical with our ownership groups,” said McCarthy-Zink. “If they understand the situation, they’re often willing to help solve it.”

With Actabl, everyone from corporate leaders to property managers to owners can access the same reliable data, driving better conversations, quicker problem-solving, and stronger alignment.

“Transparency really translates to confidence,” Rosenberg added. “It allows our owners to have confidence that we are running their hotels through the view of an owner, so we’re very much aligned.”

Learn how increasing transparency across your organization can drive accountability and growth in our blog: Lead the Charge: How CFOs Can Use Transparency to Drive Hotel Portfolio Growth.

Investing in Technology as a People Strategy

Hotel Equities’ decision to adopt Actabl was part of a broader strategy to develop and retain top talent.

“Technology plays a part in retention, growth, and development,” said Tziahanas. “The tools they provide allow us to teach our teams the fundamentals of fiscal responsibility and enhance performance, which ultimately creates additional retention.”

In fact, Actabl has become a leadership development tool within Hotel Equities' culture. By providing team members with the resources to understand their business, the hotel company opens up new career paths, boosts engagement, and reinforces its core value of cultivating leadership from the inside out.

“We love to grow talent from within. It’s part of our culture,” Tziahanas added. “And this offers another path for that.”

“Technology is table stakes for this generation of leaders,” Rosenberg emphasized. “If we don’t continue investing in technology, it will not only be hard to recruit and retain, but we’ll fall behind our competitors.”

Evolving Together for Long-Term Success

Hotel Equities’ partnership with Actabl is dynamic and designed for the future. As Hotel Equities continues to grow and evolve, so too does the role that Actabl plays in enabling smarter, more scalable operations.

The tools are not just supporting current workflows; they’re informing long-range planning, optimizing property performance, and enabling continuous improvement across the portfolio. From newly onboarded properties to long-standing hotels, Actabl’s systems provide the adaptability needed to support expansion while maintaining careful control.

Actabl will continue evolving alongside them with the support, specific insight, and flexibility that have defined the relationship from the start.

A People-First Approach to Technology

Hotel Equities invested in Actabl technology to support their people. By starting at the executive level and engaging teams at every stage, Hotel Equities has integrated technology in a way that reflects its mission and multiplies its impact. Empowered leaders, aligned stakeholders, and scalable tools—that’s the future Hotel Equities is building.

“Today’s leaders expect these tools,” Rosenberg said. “They’re not a want; they’re expected.”

With Actabl, Hotel Equities is delivering on that expectation through technology that’s as people-centric as the company itself.

Ready to eliminate data silos, improve visibility, and make faster, more confident decisions across your portfolio? Request a demo with Actabl today and see how transparency can drive accountability, growth, and stronger returns.

The post Future-Ready Hospitality: Hotel Equities Invests in the Actabl Platform to Scale with Purpose appeared first on Actabl.

Why Better Budgets Start with Educated Hotel Operators

Sarah McCay Tams — Tue, 30 Sep 2025 10:28:00 +0000

Too many hotel budgets are built in isolation, often crafted in finance offices or C-suite meetings with little input from the people who actually execute them. Creating budgets based on historical performance - of simply saying we’ll achieve an extra X% next year - is now defunct. Budgeting requires a more nuanced understanding of both the market and operations.

At Actabl, we believe that the most effective budgets don’t come from assumptions or spreadsheets alone. They’re built with insight from department leaders who understand the daily realities of hotel operations. And to make that happen, we need to train and empower those leaders to take ownership of the budgeting process.

Hotel Budgets Shouldn’t Be a Mystery

When hotel managers sit in monthly P&L reviews and hear they’ve missed a target, too often the answer is: “I didn’t even see the budget.”

They’re not being evasive. In many cases, they truly weren’t part of the process. They weren’t shown how the numbers were set. They didn’t know what they were aiming for, or why. And yet, they’re being held accountable for results.

We can do better.

Introduce the ETA Method: Expectations, Training, Accountability

Kevin Kelleher, hospitality leader, Actabl profitability champion, and advocate for operator education, explained his framework for success: ETA - Expectations, Training, Accountability.

It’s simple:

Set Expectations: Show teams what success looks like and where targets come from.
Provide Training: Educate department heads how to read, build, and execute budgets.
Hold Teams Accountable: After the first two steps, accountability makes sense and drives growth.

Accountability without expectations or training doesn’t create results—it creates burnout. But with the right tools and education, hotel leaders can become key contributors to financial performance.

See budgeting in action. Discover how Commonwealth Hotels uses Actabl’s ProfitSword to empower teams with real-time data, smarter forecasting, and stronger financial performance. Read the case study.

The Real Drivers of Success Are Your Operators

Hotel Department Heads are the legs of the operation. They move the business forward. But if they don’t know where they’re going, or why, even the most detailed budget won’t help.

“It's about equipping them with the understanding, the why and how of creating a budget and then explaining how they execute against that. Once they understand that, you're going to do a much better job of meeting your budgetary goals than if they weren't involved,” said Kevin.

When operators understand how their departmental budgets were built, how they connect to hotel-wide goals, and how their decisions impact profitability, they work differently. They manage labor more effectively. They make smarter purchasing decisions. They become invested.

As Kevin explained: “I can only be seen as a good leader if my team performs. And my team will only perform if I’ve set them up to succeed. Ultimately, we all succeed together, as one team.”

Training for Today’s Tech-Forward Workforce

There’s also a generational shift happening in hospitality. New leaders are arriving with fresh skills and talents; digital-first thinking, strong people management instincts, and customer-first development.

But many haven’t been trained on financial fundamentals like Excel or forecasting. They need intuitive tools and accessible training to turn their strengths into performance.

With the right support, these emerging leaders are capable of driving better financial outcomes than ever before. But only if we invest in their development.

What This Means for the Future of Hospitality

Educating hotel operators on budgeting is not a side project, it’s a strategy for long-term success.

“If we give them the technology to complement their talents and build new skills, they’re going to be incredibly successful. If the industry grasps this, then we’re looking at a true revolution of what the hospitality industry is going to look like in the future,” Kevin predicted.

When F&B leaders, Front Office Managers, and Housekeeping leaders understand the why behind the numbers, they become strategic partners. They bring better ideas to the table. They engage more deeply. They stick around.

And when they win, the whole property wins.

Move beyond gut feel. Build a smarter 2026 hotel budget with our Hotel Budgeting Checklist. Benchmark, set profit targets, and stay agile. Download now to hit your goals with confidence.

The post Why Better Budgets Start with Educated Hotel Operators appeared first on Actabl.