If you are a hotel owner or general manager who has had to shut down your property temporarily, you can either wait for the reopening date — or use the time to invest seriously in the next phase. The choice is consequential.
Looking at the situation with a clear lens, there is a silver lining: there are many activities, ideas, and plans that have likely been parked aside for months — items that were either difficult to implement during full operation, or simply never found their moment. There is no better time to address them than now, when there is no immediate revenue being displaced by doing so.
"There are many improvements that are simply impossible to execute with a fully occupied hotel. Temporary closure is not a crisis — it is a window."
Ten Ideas to Come Back Stronger
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01
Refresh, Upgrade, and Deep Clean
In normal operation, closing areas for deep maintenance carries direct financial cost. Now is the time. When did your kitchen last receive a forensic clean — not routine daily hygiene, but a genuine deep clean? Consider soft upgrades to guest rooms: new bedside technology, fresh linen, updated artwork, or furniture refreshes that would have required closing a floor during operation.
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02
Review Your Strategies and Policies
Audit every department's existing strategies and HR policies to identify procedures that have become outdated or are no longer fit for purpose. Sales and Marketing strategies that were written pre-pandemic may need fundamental revision, not just light editing.
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03
Rewrite Every Department's SOPs
Standard Operating Procedures accumulate inefficiencies over time. Use this period to rewrite them — eliminating duplications, enhancing cross-departmental workflow, and building in the lean operating principles that will define your post-recovery cost structure.
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04
Review Supplier Contracts
Evaluate every supplier relationship for quality and cost. Switching to local providers where feasible can improve both — better produce, shorter supply chains, and often more competitive pricing. This is the moment for those conversations.
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05
Invest in Your Team
Your people are your most valuable asset — and they are the ones carrying the anxiety of uncertainty right now. Enrol them in credible online courses. Organise wellbeing sessions. Focus on their professional growth and personal resilience. The loyalty built during difficult periods is the most durable kind.
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06
Analyse Your Cost Centres
With no operational noise to obscure the numbers, this is an ideal moment to examine every cost centre with precision. Identify where savings are available without compromising the guest experience — and restructure accordingly before volume returns.
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07
Build Your Recovery Plan
Develop a comprehensive recovery plan covering both short- and long-term objectives. What does your first 30 days of reopening look like? Your first 90? Your first year? Plans built during quiet periods are more considered and more executable than those written under pressure.
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08
Revamp Your F&B Concepts
Reopen with a fresh food and beverage experience — revised menus, updated concepts, perhaps a new offering that did not exist before. Returning guests should encounter something that feels both familiar and genuinely new.
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09
Upgrade Your Digital Presence
Revamp your website, refresh your social media strategy, and update your hotel imagery. The digital first impression will be more important than ever when guests begin planning their return. Do not reopen with a digital presence that belongs to the previous cycle.
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10
Build New Partnerships
Identify local businesses, experience providers, and activity operators that could enrich your offering at reopening. The partnerships formed now — from a position of mutual challenge and shared ambition — tend to be the most genuine and most productive.
The hotels that use temporary closure as an investment period will reopen measurably stronger than those that simply waited. The time is available. The question is how it will be used.