Hotel profitability is facing renewed pressure as labor costs continue to rise and macroeconomic uncertainty continues to shape demand patterns. In this environment, small performance improvements can have an outsized impact on the bottom line, says Otelier CEO Rob Lawrence.
In a recent conversation with Hotel Investment Today at ALIS, Lawrence discussed how hotel operators can protect profitability by improving operational intelligence – connecting fragmented data sources, eliminating manual processes, and empowering teams to make faster, more informed decisions. Watch the full interview here.
Below are four key themes from the discussion.
In many hotel business models, particularly select-service operations, profitability often comes down to narrow margins. That means even modest improvements in efficiency or revenue optimization can materially improve financial performance.
Lawrence said that adopting the right operational technology can deliver meaningful gains in businesses that already operate on razor-thin margins.
“If you're running at one or two percent margins, you can go into the red pretty easily,” Lawrence said. “But if you're leveraging technology, that two percent margin could become four or five percent – and that just creates a healthier business.”
One of the biggest obstacles to operational efficiency is fragmented technology environments. Many hotel operators rely on multiple systems to track financial performance, operational metrics, and guest data – creating a daily challenge of reconciling information across platforms.
Recent industry research underscores the scale of the problem.
“About a quarter of operators rely on up to 5 or 6 different panes of glass or systems to run their businesses,” Lawrence said.
As a result, teams spend valuable time manually pulling together data from different sources. This fragmentation not only consumes labor hours but also delays decision-making, limiting the ability for operators to respond quickly to shifts in performance.
Centralizing and normalizing data, Lawrence said, allows hotel leaders to see a full picture of their business each day without the burden of manual reconciliation.
While new technology can unlock better data visibility, successful implementation ultimately depends on how organizations adapt their workflows and decision-making processes.
Lawrence emphasized that change management plays a critical role in realizing the value of operational technology. Teams accustomed to long-standing processes may initially resist new systems, particularly if they alter daily routines.
“If you’re used to doing a certain job a certain way every day and then there’s this new application introduced into your workflow, people don’t really like change.”
Executive sponsorship is essential, he said, and leadership alignment helps ensure that technology adoption translates into improved operational behavior – ultimately enabling a culture of data-driven decisions across the organization.
Looking ahead, Lawrence believes artificial intelligence will dramatically change how hotel teams interact with operational data. Instead of relying solely on dashboards or static reports, future tools may allow operators to interact directly with their data through conversational interfaces.
“Think about it as an AI-powered conversational chatbot that sits on top of a data lake,” Lawrence said.
Through voice or text queries, operators could ask questions about performance trends, revenue drivers, or operational metrics – and the system could recommend the next questions to explore.
“It’s actually going to suggest the next question you should be asking to get to an even better insight.”
Ultimately, Lawrence emphasized that while macroeconomic forces remain unpredictable, operators can still improve outcomes by focusing on the controllable elements of their business.
With the right technology foundation, disciplined execution, and a commitment to better operational intelligence, hotels can build healthier businesses even in a challenging market.
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