By Pierre Marechal, Vice President, Strategic Advisory & Asset Management at JLL
As a new year begins, the hospitality industry enters a familiar rhythm. Business plans are approved, teams are staffed, concepts are locked in, and expectations are set. Optimism is high — and optimism is important.
But in hospitality, value isn’t created by optimism alone. It’s built through discipline, listening, and timing. One of my earliest lessons in this came not from a boardroom or business plan — but from a juice bar.
Highlights
A Luxury Opening, Done “By the Book”
When I was 21, I worked in a newly opened luxury spa — now part of a resort — housed in a beautifully restored château backed by significant government investment. To ensure success, a well-known wellness operator was brought in to co-invest and manage the project.
On paper, it had everything: capital, brand, expertise, and ambition. The operator arrived with confidence. The renovation moved quickly. The opening date was fixed. A full team was hired from day one.
That’s where I came in — assigned to the spa’s juice bar with a simple job: prepare fresh juice for guests.
There was only one problem: there were no guests.
When Process Replaces Reality
Despite the absence of demand, I was instructed to prepare fresh juice every four hours and discard whatever hadn’t been consumed. Litres of perfectly good juice went straight down the drain.
I raised the issue more than once. Could we adjust based on actual footfall? The answer was always polite, but firm:
“This is the standard.”
So I stopped questioning. Head down. Follow the process. At the time, it felt minor. In hindsight, it wasn’t.
Years Later, the Outcome Was Clear
The story came up again years later in conversation with my wife. Curious, I looked up the property.
The outcome was sobering.
The resort had gone bankrupt.
The government — the main shareholder — lost its investment.
The operator, also an investor, took a hit.
Eventually, the property was acquired by a private businessman.
He didn’t arrive with a new brand or a grand vision. What he brought was discipline. Staffing was aligned with demand. Costs were tightly managed. Operational decisions were made based on reality, not assumptions.
Today, the property is thriving.
The Juice Was Just the Symptom: The Real Problem Runs Deeper
This story isn’t about wasted juice. It’s about something far more common — and far more dangerous — in hospitality: ignoring frontline feedback because it doesn’t fit the plan.
The irony? This feedback is often practical, low-risk, and immediately actionable — what many would call low-hanging fruit. But it’s also easy to ignore because it challenges confidence, ego, or “the way things are done.”
Frontline teams experience demand — or the lack of it — in real time. They see inefficiencies before they hit the P&L. They spot waste long before it becomes material.
Yet too often, their voices are the quietest in the room.
Why Owners and Operators Can’t Afford to Miss This
In my experience advising hotel owners and operators across Asia Pacific, the strongest-performing properties are not always the ones with the biggest brands or deepest pockets.
They’re the ones that combine:
- Vision with humility
- Confidence in listening
- Strategy with operational reality
They create mechanisms to hear uncomfortable feedback early — and act on it — before small problems compound into structural issues.
Final Thoughts: What If the Most Valuable Insight Isn’t in the Boardroom?
As the industry gears up for another year of targets, strategies, and transformation, it’s worth remembering: performance isn’t driven by plans — it’s driven by people who notice what plans miss.
The most effective owners and operators I’ve worked with don’t just build strategies — they build listening systems. They empower teams to speak up early, act on feedback quickly, and treat small signs of misalignment as opportunities, not threats.
So here’s the real question:
What are your frontline teams trying to tell you — that no one in the boardroom is hearing?
And what’s it costing you not to listen?
Because sometimes, the difference between a thriving hotel and a failed one isn’t brand, capital, or vision.
It’s whether someone noticed the juice going down the drain — and whether anyone cared enough to stop it.
Highlights
Read the Chinese article here.
