Confidential Discussion
A short, structured exchange will quickly determine relevance.
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Raoul Gransier
Founder & Principal
G&A • Gransier & Associates
Gransier & Associates (G&A) provides hotel advisory and hospitality consulting services to hotel owners, investors, lenders, asset managers, and management teams seeking to improve hotel asset value through stronger organisational performance, commercial effectiveness, and governance.
The advisory services described elsewhere on this website explain what G&A does.
These insights explain why those services are delivered the way they are.
Written by G&A’s founder, Raoul Gransier, these stories describe the hotel assignments, advisory projects, and leadership experiences that have shaped his professional thinking over more than thirty years in hospitality, hotel management, and international advisory.
Each stands on its own, while The Banana Republic Hotel serves as the defining story around which the others revolve.
Together, they describe the evolution of the professional principles that underpin G&A’s advisory work.
Readers are encouraged to begin with whichever subject resonates most with their interests or organisational challenges.
The Insights Library contains practical articles on hotel management, hospitality consulting, governance, commercial strategy, leadership, organisational performance and hotel asset value.
Operational Foundations
What Hospitality Taught Me About Myself
Lessons learned while managing hotels, leading operational turnarounds and solving commercial challenges.
- Introduction
- Numbers in the Ballroom – Curiosity
- Growing Pains in the Restaurant – Perseverance
- The Dishwasher – Respect
- The Overbooked Hotel – Calmness
- The Flooded Hotel – Leadership
- The Revenue Experiment – Looking Beyond the Obvious
- The Credit Policy – Responsibility
- The Gourmet Restaurant That Happened to Have Rooms – Highest-&-Best-Use (Part I)
- The Empty Castle – Highest-&-Best-Use (Part II)
Leadership & People
What People Taught Me About Myself
How people influenced my leadership philosophy.
- Hotels + Public Money – Trust (Part I)
- The Pamir Dome – Purpose
- The Most Admirable Hotel General Manager I Know – Authenticity
- The HR Director Who Learned to Love Numbers – People and Performance Belong Together
- The CEO Who Initiated a Dialogue Rather than an Instruction – Organisational Learning
- The COO Who Managed Pace – Patience
- Trust is the Final KPI – Trust (Part II)
- The Professional I Could No Longer Trust – Discernment
- The People Who Taught Me – Gratitude
- Hospitality Taught Me Humility
The Banana Republic Hotel
The Banana Republic Hotel
The hotel assignment that became the defining turning point in my professional life.
It fundamentally changed how I think about organisations, governance, leadership, and commercial architecture, and ultimately led to the advisory principles that underpin G&A today.
A commitment to trust
Looking back, I realise that every assignment taught me something far more valuable than operational techniques or commercial strategies.
The picture on the left (or on top if you read this on a phone) shows a young boy wondering what to do with a Chinese abacus he received as a gift.
Throughout my childhood, my greatest fear was numbers.
Ironically, they later became one of my greatest professional strengths and remain central to how I help clients understand and solve complex challenges within hotel and hospitality organisations.
Everything starts somewhere.
Each experience helped shape how I think about organisations, leadership, governance, and ultimately about myself.
Over time, curiosity taught me that the ultimate deliverable is not a KPI, but trust.
These reflections are an attempt to capture that journey honestly.
If they encourage curiosity, challenge assumptions, or help others facing similar organisational challenges, they will have achieved their purpose.
Disclaimer
To preserve confidentiality and respect the individuals and organisations involved, I have deliberately omitted or anonymised the names of hotels, hospitality companies, projects, and people referred to throughout these reflections.
Their purpose is not to assign blame or praise, but to share the lessons these experiences taught me, and why they continue to shape my professional thinking today.