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Boutique Hotel News held its latest Feed Your Mind hotel owner-operator breakfast in partnership with Agilysys, hosted at the Four Seasons Hotel London at Tower Bridge.Â
Feed Your Mind events are co-hosted, content-driven roundtable discussions over breakfast, lunch or dinner. Each event is designed to provide hotel service providers with the opportunity to inform and shape the market.
In partnership with Agilysys, the latest Feed Your Mind explored how to protect asset value in a compressed market.
To kick off the conversation, Vedrana Riley (CEO, Ciel Capital), Chris Swithenbank (development director, Brightstar Hospitality), and Philip Steiner (COO, Vertiq Hospitality Partners) prepared opening statements to the central motion: traditional hotel management agreements are structurally engineered to protect operator fees, not owner NOI.
With EBITDA margins compressing sharply from historic highs due to surging minimum wages, energy inflation, and tax burdens, owners are scrutinising contracts much more closely. The discussion highlighted a growing friction over hidden operational fees, procurement kick-backs, and the heavy distribution costs of global brands and OTAs. As a result, agreements are being negotiated at shorter three-to-five year terms (with options to extend) as owners seek greater flexibility and operators now expected to prove their worth.
Beyond contract structures, the debate also drilled down into the day-to-day operational realities of protecting asset value. Operators shared their frustration with juggling a fragmented tech stack – in one case, dealing with 87 separate systems – sparking ideas on how AI can make the middle P&L more lean. This bottom-up strategy placed a huge spotlight on general managers, who are playing a crucial role in understanding cost lines and controlling invoices. As the industry looks ahead, it was agreed that hands-on alignment with full transparency is essential to weathering the storm.
Companies represented included: Atlas Hotels, Axiom Hospitality, BGAM Hospitality, C1 Capital, Capstone Hotel Partners, Compass Hotels Management, Hamlet Hotels, Hybrid Residential, Immersive Hospitality Management, Kingfisher Hospitality Group, Luxury Hotel Management, Palm Holdings, Remarkable Hotels, Rockingham Partners, Starry Hospitality, The Sirius Hotel Group, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, Zeal Hotels, and more.
For further information about our Feed Your Mind events, please contact Katie Houghton at katie@internationalhospitality.media / +34 711 02 42 31.
