The Empty Castle

This is another story about the “Highest-and-Best-Use” (HBU) for hotels.

When people imagine hotel consulting, they usually picture boardrooms, PowerPoint presentations, and strategy workshops.

Interim management represents another, far more practical side of hotel consulting.
It is often the solution hotel owners turn to when an organisation needs experienced leadership without permanently changing its management.
The owner remains in control while bringing in an independent executive to stabilise the business, implement change, and get the job done—free from the politics that can sometimes accompany an internal appointment.

Let me tell you about the Empty Castle – an interim hotel management project.

It was a bitterly cold winter night.
My first evening at a hidden castle in the countryside of a Central European country, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, I started an interim management assignment.

There were no guests.
No restaurant. No reception.
By early evening, the few remaining staff wished me goodnight, locked the front door behind them, and drove home.

I was alone.
Completely alone. In a castle.
Outside, the wind swept across the plains. Inside, old wooden floors creaked beneath centuries-old ceilings.
Doors seemed to settle of their own accord.
Every corridor appeared to amplify the sound of the wind.
Like many people, I had seen “The Shining“.

Before going to bed, I quietly placed a chair beneath the bedroom door handle.
Just in case.
Nothing happened, of course.

The following morning, daylight transformed the castle into exactly what it really was: one of the most beautiful hospitality properties I had ever seen.
But it also revealed something else.

The castle wasn’t haunted.
The business was.
Not by ghosts, but by history.

This particular castle had never really needed to function as a commercial enterprise.
It had served as a private retreat, entertaining family, friends, and invited guests through hunting weekends, gourmet experiences, and country-house hospitality.
It was magnificent.
But it had never been designed to compete in the marketplace.

When commercial self-sufficiency became necessary, the symptoms were obvious.

• Weak cash flow
• Inconsistent occupancy
• An organisation built around tradition rather than demand
• A product that appealed to everyone in theory, but to nobody in particular

It would have been easy to focus on the hotel.
Instead, I asked a different question.
The same question I had first learned to ask years earlier while managing “the gourmet restaurant that happened to have rooms“—a story for another time.

What business should this castle actually be in?
Or, applying real-estate terminology applied to hotels: What is its ideal Highest-and-Best-Use?

The long – cold – winter evenings left plenty of time to think.
Not about how to improve the hotel, but about what business the castle should actually be in.
The answer wasn’t accommodation.
It was experience.

We got to work!
Together with a remarkably committed local team of chefs and service staff, reception and housekeeping team, and estate maintenance team, we created a dedicated MICE proposition, and I spent my days knocking on doors in nearby cities, introducing the castle directly to companies that had never considered holding meetings there.

For readers unfamiliar with hotel terminology, MICE stands for Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Events.
Despite the name, no castle mice were ever considered a culinary speciality.
Our chef would never have forgiven me.

Weekends became something entirely different.
The castle already hosted beautiful weddings.
Instead of selling guestrooms, meeting rooms, and restaurant meals separately, we stopped selling components altogether.

We began selling the entire estate.

“Rent a Castle”

For one weekend, the bride and groom didn’t simply reserve a venue.
They became the prince and princess of their own castle.
Their families occupied the estate.
The chapel. The gardens.
The dining rooms. Everything.

Commercially, it changed almost everything.
Bundling the experience improved pricing, simplified operations, concentrated labour, reduced energy consumption and transformed the economics of running such a large historic estate.

Behind the scenes, we rebuilt the management systems as well:

• USALI
• Cash-flow management
• ERP
• Business intelligence
• Food and beverage; not just marketing context, but cooking and service flow, purchasing, storage, wastage, pilferage, FTE, COS – all of it
• Sales representation in the key feeder markets
• Marketing cooperation with the estate’s winery

Slowly, almost quietly, the castle began to stand on its own feet.

Eventually, I handed the operation over to a professional General Manager who successfully continued the repositioning and further developed the business.
A wonderful gentleman, professional and courteous, and principled; one of the few hotel managers on my list I will call for help.

Looking back, I sometimes smile at that first night.

The chair under the door was protecting me from imaginary dangers.
The real challenge wasn’t hidden in dark corridors.
It was hidden inside the business model.

Over the years, I’ve discovered that this is true of many organisations.

The problems that keep leaders awake at night are rarely the ones that threaten the future of the enterprise.

The real challenge is usually something much quieter.

Understanding what business the organisation is truly in.
Only then can you begin to build something strong enough to last.

Thank you for reading my story.

This story is part of a series—”The Banana Republic Hotel and What It Taught Me About Myself”—in which I share lessons learned throughout my professional and personal journey and how those experiences have shaped my thinking and led me to develop my own principles.

If you enjoyed reading the story and have the appetite to read another one, you are invited to visit G&A’s website, in particular its INSIGHTS page, where you can find all stories.
Alternatively, click here to be taken to the next story of this series.

I hope it has provided some food for thought, encouraged curiosity, and inspired you to keep learning.

Curiosity, humility, and continuous learning remain among the most valuable tools we possess.

Terminology for non-hoteliers:

• SOP: Standard Operating Procedure – a documented process describing how a task should be performed to ensure consistency, quality, and compliance.
• KPIs: Key Performance Indicators – measurable indicators used to monitor performance and progress against objectives.
• ADR: Average Daily Rate – the average room rate paid by guests.
• RevPAR: Revenue per Available Room – a measure combining occupancy and room rate to assess hotel revenue performance.
• Occupancy: The percentage of available rooms that are occupied.
• DOF: Double Occupancy Factor – the average number of guests staying in each occupied room. A DOF of 1.0 means every occupied room has one guest; 2.0 means every occupied room has two guests.
• AGC: Average Guest Check – the average amount spent by each guest in a restaurant, bar, or other food and beverage outlet.
• CRS: Central Reservation System – the central booking system that manages a hotel’s room inventory, rates, and reservations across all sales channels.
• PMS: Property Management System – the software used to manage reservations, guest accounts, and hotel operations.
• OTA: Online Travel Agency – websites such as Booking.com or Expedia that sell hotel rooms on behalf of hotels.
• GDS: Global Distribution System – a worldwide booking network used by travel agents and corporate travel departments to reserve hotel rooms, flights, and other travel services.
• CRM: Customer Relationship Management – systems and processes used to manage guest relationships and marketing.
• F&B: Food & Beverage Department – all restaurant, bar, banquet, room service, and catering operations within a hotel.
• Half-Board: A hotel meal plan that includes breakfast and one additional meal each day, usually dinner. Drinks other than those specifically included are generally charged separately.
• MICE: Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Events – the hotel business related to corporate meetings, conferences, exhibitions, and incentive travel.
• ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning – an integrated software system that connects key business functions such as finance, procurement, inventory, human resources, sales, and reporting into a single platform.
• USALI: Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry – the internationally recognised accounting standard used by hotels to measure and compare financial performance.
• GOP: Gross Operating Profit – the operating profit generated by the hotel before management fees, rent, financing costs, depreciation, taxes, and other non-operating expenses.
• EBITDA: Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortisation – a widely used measure of an organisation’s operating profitability.
• COS: Cost of Sales – the direct cost of producing the goods sold, such as food, beverages, or merchandise, expressed as an amount or percentage of revenue.
• FTE: Full-Time Equivalent – a standard measure of staffing that converts part-time and seasonal employees into the equivalent number of full-time employees.

About the Author

Raoul Gransier is a Senior International Adviser and owner-focused hotelier with more than 30 years of operational and advisory experience in hospitality, tourism, governance, and performance improvement.

Website

https://gransier.com