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HOW TO SET UP A NEW HOTEL

HOW TO SET UP A NEW HOTEL

Author: Zuper Hotels & Resorts Date: 16 June 2025

When the first hotel opened in 1768, everything was on paper. A massive ledger recorded every detail of the guests who booked their rooms. Later came spreadsheets, which more or less simplified everything. Maintaining a database became easy. Then, the hotel management software revolutionized everything. To capitalize on one of the world’s largest industries, you must have an entrepreneurial mindset. The success of your hotel business will depend upon your ability to delight and serve your guests alongside the multitude of responsibilities it brings with absolute elegance, patience, and dignity. In other words, you must be prepared to put in effort and fully understand that guest experience is vital if you want your hotel to succeed.

Additionally, you should hire a hotel management company to show you the way.

Find your position in the industry.

First and foremost, you need to get a complete understanding of the business and the most recent information you can find. Develop thought leadership and gather best practices from regional and global entities. Check out industry news—you might even find that your idea has no market. However, a few adjustments can always manifest a USP, resulting in profitability. Whether you are acquiring a property or building one, a solid market analysis can simplify the setup process and increase your bottom line.

Define an identity.

Based on the market study, decide the kind of décor you would like your hotel to have because interior themes cannot be changed frequently. For instance, you might want to choose a boutique hotel with special qualities—it could be historic and ideal for households. Alternatively, it could be a family-friendly hotel with large beds, extra sleeping arrangements, entertainment, and attractions nearby. Budgeted hotels with scaled-back amenities can be provided to customers who are looking for lower rates. Luxury hotels with high price tags could possess five-star amenities such as concierge, spa, and room service, giving guests access to upscale facilities.

Important things to consider before opening a hotel business

Some key factors are imperative to decide how you run your hotel, which can maximize your success.

You could either start from scratch or take over an existing property. For this, you must define your budget, motivations, goals, and other options that can help you make decisions. If you take over a hotel, you might have to make infrastructural modifications. Additional work may also be involved to bring the hotel up to your vision.

Choosing a name

As trivial as it may seem, picking a name for your hotel is the first step to achieving your hotel dream. The name is your brand, which will be used forever. That is why choosing a name that will help recall and stay in individual memory is imperative. Thereafter, check for availability. For this, you may have to scour tons of trademark databases to see if any business is legally registered with the name. At this point, zeroing in on a domain name would also be good.

Pro Tip: Choose a professional sales & marketing company in Mumbai to help you with a creative name.

Create a business plan.

Drafting a hotel business plan can alleviate doubts about the venture and help you move ahead profitably. Prepare an executive summary with your mission and objectives to provide a high-level overview. Then, deep-dive into your brand's story and the hotel's unique selling points. A demonstrated market and competitor analysis will help you understand the market you are operating in. Breaking down your target market according to location, behavior, demographics, age, and other factors will help you comprehend the target market closely.

A strategic plan covering marketing and distribution followed by salient plans for finance and operations can be laid out to spread revenue and convince investors about the soundness of your plan. Employ people in management who can run your business. In other words, experience plays a pivotal role in the choice of candidature.

Legal Structure

This stage is all about making your venture legal. Register your business according to the norms and regulations. You can choose to be a sole proprietorship, become a partnership, or become a limited liability company.

Choose a professional hotel representation company in Mumbai to help you navigate the legal landscape.

Financial Strategy

Stay on top of your finances. This is more than just critical for the launch of your hotel. The process can be overwhelming but highly rewarding as well. Write down in detail your start-up costs, which could be for lease, registration, accounting, property purchase, etc. Jot down your ongoing costs as well, including salaries, wages, bank repayments, leasing, and other operating costs. Simultaneously, you may want to forecast your income based on the number of beds, forecasts, expected occupancy rate, average price per person, etc.

Marketing

Every modern traveler understands the convenience of online information. From identifying the hotel to booking activities and other elements of their stay, the consumer scans various OTAs looking for the best blend of budget and luxury. It is best to create an online social media presence and give potential customers the opportunity to find you and book with you through the internet. This could be direct or through a portal, a process where your hotel gets marketed across several channels.

The Online Presence

With commercialization comes marketing, and that is why it is extremely important that you choose the Hotel Marketing Company to boost your online visibility. Reach a more targeted audience, establish a brand image, and improve credibility when you get professionals to handle your hotel’s internet sales. Independent hotel owners must take advantage of technological innovation to stay in the now and create an impact.

90% of the world’s population is shopping online FOR EVERYTHING.

Smartphones have dominated every facet of our lives, making search and finding easy. Therefore, it is pivotal to invest in digital marketing, a social process that elevates your brand and satisfies people’s needs.

Hotel Market

The hotel market is enormous – there are more than 700,000 hotels worldwide offering around 4 million rooms globally, and the value of this market runs to about $1.2 trillion. Budget, bed and breakfast, boutique, luxury, you name it – they cater to all types of guest needs. The industry is so vast that it was the worst-hit sector during the pandemic. 

 

With businesses growing everywhere and the tourism industry flourishing again, it is time to promptly look up and address hotel and property needs with India's best hotel management company.


 

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