As hotel operators look for ways to control costs and drive greater value across their portfolios, many are reconsidering how talent is deployed. That effort is leading more companies to complexing, a model that allows individual hotels to share specialized employees and resources while maintaining distinct operations.
A natural starting point is often sales. A single team can represent several hotels, spread payroll costs across a broader revenue base, match group leads with the best-fit asset and pursue business that an individual limited- or select-service property might struggle to support on its own.
In a complexed operating model, the properties remain distinct businesses, often with different brands, guest profiles and operating needs. While a sales team can often operate remotely, those based on the properties are better equipped for daily contact with hotel staff, meeting/travel planners and guests.
At smaller hotels that historically depend on transient demand, group business may represent a modest portion of the mix, making it difficult to justify a dedicated sales team due to the limited return on that investment. Group leads and negotiated corporate rates can take significant time and effort to prospect, develop and convert and new opportunities often appear through indirect means like repeat stays, a simple conversation that may happen in the lobby or a conversation outside of the hotel entirely. As a result, the payoff is often gradual and not always easy to quantify, but the right team and approach will produce measurable results over time.
Complexing allows a sales team to serve several nearby hotels, giving each property access to focused expertise, a greater sales funnel, and the ability to share payroll costs. With a wider range of inventory to sell, the sales team also increases the odds of matching a prospect with the right room, rate and amenities for their needs. This opens opportunities for a hotel to be considered when it otherwise might not be, allows it to pursue business it couldn’t secure on its own and helps generate repeat or rotational bookings.
Bradford Allen owns two hotels in Glendale, Ariz., that share sales capabilities. While both are Marriott-branded hotels in or adjacent to the Westgate Sports & Entertainment District, home to the Arizona Cardinals’ State Farm Stadium, the assets have different profiles, target different customers and complement each other.
The 100-key Aloft Glendale at Westgate is a lifestyle-oriented, select service asset while TownePlace Suites Glendale is a 92-key extended-stay hotel that specializes in longer bookings for corporate and group guests. Each hotel features its own aesthetic, room configurations and amenity offerings, allowing the shared sales team to better approach the market with two distinct products. With the ability to tailor offers to different group budgets and needs, they can serve a broader pool of guests without forcing every type of lead into the same operating model.
This flexibility supports more strategic revenue management. If one hotel is nearing capacity, the sales team can shift demand to the property with more inventory, maximizing occupancy across the portfolio. This protects rate integrity, avoids unnecessary discounts simply to fill rooms and enables the ability to drive additional rate through effective revenue management.
The team’s on-property presence provides direct, day-to-day knowledge of both hotels, while regular communication between them ensures insights are shared and are present for important touch points. This hands-on approach allows the team to recognize repeat guests and help operations deliver seemingly small but memorable touches that matter to guests, decision-makers and key contacts alike. Those actions strengthen the guest experience and improve the chances of sourcing and securing new business as well as renewals.
Leveraging F&B
Sales may be the most visible use case, but engineering and food and beverage are also strong candidates for complexing. At a smaller hotel, a lone engineer can spend so much time responding to immediate work orders that preventive maintenance becomes an afterthought. A broader engineering team can tackle urgent repairs without losing sight of scheduled inspections, create better coverage during vacations and emergencies and build a more robust preventive maintenance program.
For F&B, shared resources can lead to stronger purchasing power, broader menus and staff scheduling flexibility. These advantages are often greatest for smaller properties that could not (or struggle to) support those roles independently. As F&B margins continue to shrink, complexing arrangements can help operators create efficiencies that enhance execution while improving cost control and providing more opportunities for the staff.
Complexing can also deepen the pool of prospective employees, improving attraction and retention. With many specialized functions at a small property amounting to part-time work, combining those hours across two or more hotels can create a full-time position with a reliable schedule and stronger career path. This is particularly important given the industry’s current workforce challenges; more than half of respondents to a recent American Hotel & Lodging Association survey said their properties were somewhat or severely understaffed.
One caveat to complexing is that success depends on scaling the team alongside the portfolio. While shared resources can create efficiencies, operators must ensure employees are not stretched too thin, and that each role remains properly supported and focused on key priorities and initiatives. We continually evaluate opportunities to complex operations across assets and departments, but only when the strategy aligns with the unique needs of each property and market.
While not a new concept, complexing has been and will likely continue to be an increasingly important part of the hotel operating toolkit as labor pressures and rising costs reshape the industry. Operators that evaluate where resources can be shared—deliberately scaling those teams alongside the portfolio—will be better positioned to protect margins, compete for talent and improve the guest experience, all of which are critical and foundational pieces in ensuring long-term success.
Story contributed by Bryan Williams, senior director, hospitality, Bradford Allen.