Trust Archive

The Banana Republic Hotel and What It Taught Me About Myself

The Professional I Could No Longer Trust

The Professional I Could No Longer Trust

Not every lesson arrives through success and admiration.
Some arrive through disappointment, hurt, and betrayal.

This story is about discernment: the ability to recognise that competence and trustworthiness are not the same thing.

Competence creates confidence. Trust creates relationships.
When I was younger, I believed competence naturally created trust.
Experience taught me otherwise. Competence creates confidence.

Trust creates relationships. The two often appear together.
Occasionally they do not.
The difference matters.

Some of the most successful people I have encountered were not necessarily the most trustworthy.
Some of the most trustworthy were not necessarily the most successful.
The rare individuals possess both.
Those are the people worth keeping close.

One of the most capable professionals I encountered during my career taught me exactly that.
Her expertise was genuine.
She opened the door to my early career in advisory work.
I learned from her. Significantly.
We collaborated, exchanged ideas, developed opportunities, and worked together over many years.

At least that was how I understood the relationship.

Over time, circumstances changed.
A client relationship moved elsewhere.
People I had worked with were pursued to join her for a very promising opportunity.
Looking back, I no longer view the events as a misunderstanding or a difference in perception.
The consequences were significant, both professionally and personally.
What had taken years to build—relationships, concepts, and frameworks—disappeared remarkably quickly.

I have experienced my share of professional disappointments.
Few affected me as deeply as this one.
The commercial and contractual consequences were not the most important part of the story.
The real lesson was different.
The experience forced me to confront a possibility I had previously preferred not to consider.
Professional competence and personal trustworthiness are not the same thing.

For a long time, I struggled with that conclusion.
Not because I did not understand what had happened.
Rather, because I found it difficult to reconcile the contradiction.
How could somebody demonstrate such professionalism in one area and such poor judgement in another?

Years passed.
I struggled. I adapted. I rebuilt.
I developed new capabilities and new business lines.
I strengthened structures that reduced dependency on individuals and created greater resilience.
In many ways, this experience reinforced a theme that would later become central to my professional thinking: governance.

For me, governance is not bureaucracy.
Governance is the operating system of decision-making.
It creates clarity around decision rights, accountability, expectations, information flows, and risk.
Proper governance does not eliminate human error or poor judgement.
It does, however, reduce ambiguity and make organisations less vulnerable when trust is tested.

One principle gradually emerged from this experience.
Revenue can be purchased.
Trust must be earned.
In the long run, trust is often what produces sustainable revenue.

Over time, my frustration diminished.
My conclusion remained.
The professional relationship ended because trust had been broken.
Some things can be repaired. Others cannot.

Yet something interesting happened.
My respect for her professional capability survived.
I continued to recognise her expertise.
I continued to acknowledge the contribution she made to my own development.
The relationship ended. The lessons remained.

That distinction took years to understand.
It would be easy to reduce the story to heroes and villains.
Reality is rarely that simple. Neither are people, nor me.

Looking back, I learned two lessons:

One about commercial thinking
One about character

Both were valuable. Only one survived the relationship.
And, more importantly, this helped me avoid becoming a cynic and remain guided in my work with people by trust.

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.

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

18.06.2026/by gransier

The Banana Republic Hotel and What It Taught Me About Myself

Trust is the Final KPI

Trust is the Final KPI

This story is about trust.

Not the trust that exists when everything goes well, but the trust that survives disagreement.
The more mature I become, the more suspicious I become of success that destroys trust.
The immediate outcome may appear attractive, but the long-term cost is often invisible until it arrives.

Agreement proves little. Trust reveals itself when people remain connected despite conflict.
For many years, I searched for better metrics.
Today, I sometimes wonder whether trust was the metric all along.

The numbers told the story. At least that is what I thought.
I was trained to believe that successful hotel projects could be recognised quite easily.
Revenue increased. Profit improved. Market share grew.
Guest satisfaction rose. Budgets were achieved.
Property value improved. Debt service secured.
Investment plan on schedule.

Then I started noticing something.

When I looked back on the projects that remained most meaningful in my memory, I rarely remembered the final spreadsheet.
I remembered the people.
A conversation years later. An unexpected phone call.
A recommendation. A friendship.
A door that remained open long after the assignment itself had ended.
Or occasionally, a door that closed forever.

That observation forced me to reconsider what success actually meant.

One organisation in particular taught me this lesson.
The engagement lasted several years.
The discussions were often challenging.
The expectations were not always aligned.
At times I pushed harder than the organisation wished to move.
At other times the organisation moved more slowly than I wished to accept.

There were disagreements.
There were difficult conversations.
There were moments when it would have been easier for both sides simply to stop talking.

Yet something survived.
Trust.

Years after the project ended, the relationships remained.
The conversations remained. The respect remained.
Even some of the disagreements remained.
What disappeared was the need to be right.
What remained was confidence in each other’s intentions.
That fascinated me.

The project itself had eventually stopped.
The relationship had not.

And that forced me to ask a question. What exactly had been created?
Certainly not a report. Certainly not a spreadsheet.
Certainly not a KPI.
The answer, I believe, was trust.
Not blind trust. Not emotional trust. Professional trust.

The confidence that somebody will tell you the truth, even when it is uncomfortable.
Also when it’s me on the receiving end.
The confidence that disagreement does not imply disloyalty.
The confidence that criticism serves improvement rather than politics.
The confidence that intentions remain aligned even when opinions differ.

Looking back, I increasingly believe trust is one of the most misunderstood assets in business.
Everyone talks about it.
Few measure it.

Yet organisations built upon trust can survive extraordinary pressure.
Organisations without trust often struggle even under favourable conditions.

The same applies to partnerships.
Teams. Families. Perhaps even countries.
Trust rarely appears on a balance sheet.
Yet its absence eventually appears everywhere else.

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.

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

17.06.2026/by gransier

The Banana Republic Hotel and What It Taught Me About Myself

The Most Admirable Hotel General Manager I Know

The Most Admirable Hotel General Manager I Know

This story is about how authenticity taught me that leadership begins with understanding who you are.

Throughout my career, I have encountered many leaders who tried to imitate others.
The successful ones rarely did.
The strongest leaders usually possess a deep understanding of who they are.
They then build upon that foundation, not by replacing their strengths, but by complementing them.

The most memorable Hotel General Manager I know taught me a lesson I continue to carry today.
People do not follow perfection. They follow authenticity.
And authenticity becomes more powerful when combined with curiosity and a willingness to keep learning.

Over the years, I have worked with many Hotel General Managers.
Some were commercially brilliant. Some were operationally exceptional.
Some were charismatic. Some were disciplined.
Some were feared. Some were respected.

One in particular remains in my memory.
Not because he was the most analytical, or achieved the best KPIs.
And certainly not because he was the most demanding.
In many ways, he is my opposite. His teams genuinely love him.
Not merely respect him. They love him.
There is a difference.

He is approachable, patient, and genuinely interested in people.
He remembers names, families, birthdays, concerns, and successes.
People naturally want to do well for him.
I admire that. Because – even if our worldview is the same – I could not do it the way he does.
My instinct has always been different. I gravitate toward structure, numbers, expectations, analysis, and systems.
When faced with a problem, I look for causes.
He looks for people first.

Yet over time, something interesting happened.
He became increasingly curious about the commercial and operational logic behind the business.
Not because he wanted to become more analytical, but because he wanted to become more effective.
He started asking different questions.
Questions about profitability. Questions about assumptions.
Questions about consequences. Questions about why things worked the way they did.
And then he did something important. He did not abandon who he was.
He incorporated what he learned into who he already was.

The result was remarkable.
The warmth remained. The humanity remained.
The connection with his teams remained.
But now there was additional clarity, additional discipline, and additional understanding.

Eventually he was promoted.
The promotion surprised nobody. Least of all me.
What impressed me was not the promotion itself.
It was his evolution. He did not become somebody else.
He became more complete.

Perhaps more.
He taught me that leadership is not merely about achieving better numbers.
It is about becoming the best version of yourself.
The numbers are often a consequence rather than the objective.

His path happened to be different from mine. And that was precisely why it was valuable.

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.

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

13.06.2026/by gransier

The Banana Republic Hotel and What It Taught Me About Myself

Hotels + Public Money

Hotels + Public Money

This story is about how institutional work taught me that trust is built when reality and representation remain aligned.

Years later, I entered institutional advisory work.
It was a very different world from hotel operations.

Instead of guests, employees, and owners, I found myself working with international financial institutions, donor-funded development programmes, procurement frameworks, governance structures, and advisory assignments supporting hotels and tourism businesses across emerging markets.

Many readers may wonder what that actually means.

In this context, a donor is not a charity.
A donor is typically a national government, a group of governments, or an international organisation that allocates development funding to strengthen economic growth and stability in other countries.
Rather than providing money directly to businesses, these funds are often channelled through international financial institutions and development programmes.
Part of those resources finances technical advisory projects for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The purpose is not charity.
It is sustainable economic development.
The idea is simple: Strong businesses create employment, generate tax revenue, attract investment, and contribute to more resilient local economies.
For hotel, restaurant, and travel trade owners, this often means access to highly subsidised advisory support covering subjects such as commercial repositioning, operational improvement, governance, financial management, leadership development, or business planning.

The objective is not to take over the business.
The objective is to leave behind knowledge that remains valuable long after the advisory assignment has finished.
In other words, the objective is not to create dependency on advisors but to build capability within the business itself.

Donor-funded advisory often provides SMEs with the support they need once they begin experiencing growing pains.
Examples of such SMEs include family-owned hotels and restaurants and travel agencies, all of which are based in developing economies.
Many of these enterprises are not yet ready for private equity or institutional investment because they have not yet developed the governance, reporting, and management capabilities required to manage third-party capital.
Many aspire to reach that stage, each progressing at its own pace.

I found that idea inspiring.
My role was to help SMEs become stronger businesses by improving governance, commercial performance, financial planning, and management capability, thereby preparing them to access finance and use investment responsibly.
No two businesses were ever the same. The principles often were.

The work took me to countries, businesses, cultures, and ultimately, people.
Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Croatia, Egypt, Georgia, Greece, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovakia, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Tatarstan, Tunisia, Uzbekistan, and Ukraine.

Much of the work was rewarding.
Some of it was frustrating.

What surprised me most, however, was how similar the underlying challenges were to those I had encountered years earlier in hotel operations.

People remained people.
Ambition remained ambition.
Fear remained fear.
And trust remained fragile.

The larger the system became, the easier it was for reality and representation to drift apart.

Reports could look better than facts.
Processes could appear stronger than their implementation.
Compliance could exist on paper while underlying problems remained unresolved.
Whenever reality and representation diverged, difficulties eventually emerged.

The larger the gap, the greater the consequences.
Over time, I realised that governance is often misunderstood.
Many people see governance as bureaucracy.
I came to see it differently.

Governance is simply the process of managing expectations.

Who decides?
Who is responsible?
Who is accountable?
Who knows what?
What happens when something goes wrong?

Without clear answers, trust slowly erodes.
That observation reinforced something I had learned years earlier while managing hotels.

Integrity is not a slogan.
It is the alignment between what is said and what is done.

I remain grateful for the opportunity to have worked with international financial institutions, donors, local entrepreneurs, and hotel owners across many countries.
The experience convinced me that these programmes remain important where markets, public administration, or political systems alone cannot fully support private-sector development.

But they also confirmed something even more fundamental.
No institution, governance framework, or procurement process can substitute for personal integrity.
In the end, every system still depends on people choosing to do the right thing when nobody is watching.

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.

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

11.06.2026/by gransier

The Banana Republic Hotel and What It Taught Me About Myself

Introduction

Introduction

I once managed a hotel that operated more like a banana republic than a business.

In another hotel, I learned more about leadership during a flood than in years of management training
A credit policy taught me accountability
A 100% overbooked hotel—on the arrival day—taught me calmness
A Dishwasher taught me respect
A revenue experiment taught me curiosity

And so it continued.
Every hotel, and many of the people I met throughout my career in hospitality, taught me a lesson.
None of these lessons came from textbooks.
They came from real people, difficult situations, mistakes, successes, and occasionally complete chaos.

For more than 30 years, I was asked to analyse hotels, businesses, and organisations.
I learned to observe before judging, question assumptions, and look beyond the obvious.
Often, the problem everyone could see was not the real problem at all.

Only much later did I realise I had never applied that same way of thinking to myself.
I decided to apply my advisory methodology to myself.
This series is the result of that decision.

These are not stories about hotels.
They are stories about what hospitality taught me.

They begin before the Banana Republic Hotel, continue through it, and extend far beyond it.

Ultimately, this is the story of becoming a better professional, a better leader, and, I hope, a better human being.

Perhaps some of those lessons will resonate with your own journey as well.

Overview of Stories

The Banana Republic Hotel
What It Taught Me About Myself

21 stories, so far, about staying humble and human in an industry that often rewards appearances.

No glamour
No pretense
No illusions

The finalised stories in this series are listed below:

Thank you for reading my introduction.

This is an introduction to a series of stories—”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 a 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.

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

01.06.2026/by gransier

Tag Archive for: Trust

The Professional I Could No Longer Trust

Trust is the Final KPI

The Most Admirable Hotel General Manager I Know

Hotels + Public Money

Introduction

Confidential Discussion