What can happen during a new hotel's pre-opening?

A new hotel pre-opening is a new adventure that is full of surprises; anything can happen during this stage, and I would like to share with you some real-life examples, as many of you might have different expectations and some of these scenarios might have an impact on your career path, let me explain to you why.

-Going back to my recent two articles about what an F&B Manager might be expecting from his/her first pre-opening experience, an HOD is usually hired 3 to 6 months before the opening, or even longer, this varies from one chain to another or one property to another, depending on many factors ..

What can happen during a hotel pre-opening? Here are a few points that I can share that I have personally either experienced or that happened with some of my friends or colleagues during my career path :

• A hotel pre-opening might be delayed many times, and each time you get a potential opening date it gets delayed again, during this period everyone are still getting paid and more expenses are going above the opening budgeted figures which might put a big pressure on sales and operations once the hotel opens to compensate these extra expenses that the investors have incurred ....I was lucky to be part of a flagship government-funded luxury hotel where the opening was delayed for months longer than initially planned due to many reasons, such as delays in receiving hotel furniture & some other essential equipment, and other reasons that were related to the corporate office plans.

• A hotel's investor / Owner might run out of liquidity, as many might underestimate the real investment amounts that are needed during an opening and will get caught a few months before the opening with no more funds and start seeking partners or new funds to come before injecting into the project to complete and open on time, if this is an independent hotel you might be at risk of losing your job and project getting delayed until further notice, but if there is an agreement between the investor and a chain that is managing the property, the investor might be at high risk of paying a hefty penalty if he doesn't open the project on time or stop funding the project, therefore, you might be more protected when you work with a reputable chain that is supporting a new project opening, in these cases, the investor is the one that is under pressure for getting more funds or to find another partner to add into this investment .

• Some five-stars projects that had management agreements with reputable chains did end up cancelling a project's opening just a month or two before the opening., it happened with few cases that i am aware of during my journey in the Gulf and it happened that i was working for another hotel's pre-opening and we were asked if we can hire all the staff from the other project that is getting canceled and we actually did hire a lot luckily but many others simply had to go back to their countries or left to find jobs themselves around the city !

• Another scenario that can happen and has happened during my tenure with one of the reputable projects in Dubai, The owners weren't happy with the banner that was leading the hotel into the opening and they did replace this banner with another just a month before the opening date, so as HOD's we didn't know if we would remain or get replaced, my advise in such situations is to stay focused on your area of influence and not worry about the area of concern, do your job and don't play politics, so basically we were interviewed by the new management and they have evaluated our resumes and decided to give each HOD 3 months to prove ourselves and to be honest this was one of the most successful openings that i have enjoyed, full of challenges yet full of valuable lessons.

• GM change during or straight after the opening! you might think that a GM is the person who doesn't change but is the one changing, but I can tell you that the GM is the person who is supposed to meet/exceed the owner's expectations in the project's progress, the corporate office's expectations in leading the project following the critical path & by implementing all corporate standards, supporting the hired HOD's and coaching them during the first few months, Meet & possibly FIGHT regularly with the Project manager which happens a lot, as for your knowledge when a GM is hired, it is still a construction site, and a GM should have a daily close coordination with the project manager, and a lot of decisions these two people do make together to ensure project delivery as per corporate standards, in summary a GM has tons of pressure during a pre-opening stage, and in many cases, any delays or over budgeted expenses during this period might result in the GM getting replaced straight after the opening period , so this scenario shouldn't come to your surprise .

• You should be aware that the staff turnover ratio after a new hotel pre-opening can spike between 50-70% for some departments, such as F&B, front office agents & housekeeping, who normally get the highest levels of pressure during the pre-opening stage, and the reason you need to be aware of this is not to get surprised that you might get busy interviewing staff and hiring straight after the opening where you thought that this task has been done part of your recruitment trips or open recruitment days!

Yes, in summary, as much as I enjoyed every pre-opening experience in my life, I can tell you that it is also a period of uncertainty in some situations, a lot of pressure that not many might be able to handle. So you need to be aware of what a pre-opening takes and be ready to dive into a world of adventure and sweat and pressure, rest be assured that all of your efforts will pay after the opening and when the business gets stable, where you can start delegating more have a better balance in your life.