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Hospitality · Real Estate

The Hotel / Motel Business

A hotel or motel is two businesses stacked on one another: a piece of income real estate and a 24-hour service operation that fills it. The number that runs the place is RevPAR (occupancy times nightly rate), the quiet tax is OTA commission, and the heavy fixed base means a few points of occupancy is the whole margin. You are buying a building, a brand position, and an occupancy machine, all at once.

$500k-$5M typical revenueRevPAR is the whole gameReal estate value on top of cash flowOTA commission taxes every booking
01

The Snapshot

Is this worth your attention?

$500k-$5M
Typical annual revenue
20-80 rooms, limited service
15-25%
Owner cash margin
well-run; thin if occupancy slips
$1M-$8M+
Cost to acquire
mostly the real estate
5-10 yrs
Typical payback
real estate plus operating cash flow
Medium-High
Day-to-day difficulty
24/7 staffing and guest service
Medium-High
Absentee potential
once a general manager is in place

A fit if you…

  • Can put down serious capital or partner on a real-estate deal
  • Think in occupancy and RevPAR, not just nightly rate
  • Can hire and keep a reliable front desk and housekeeping crew
  • Want a business with hard-asset value underneath the cash flow
  • Will work the channel mix to pull bookings away from the OTAs

Probably not if you…

  • Want a low-capital, asset-light business
  • Can not stomach a soft season against a fixed mortgage
  • Dislike round-the-clock staffing and guest complaints
  • Expect to ignore the building - lodging hides capital costs
02

Step Inside the Layout

A live look at one tool inside

This is the actual 3D floor from the full model - drag to explore it. Inside, you configure the space yourself and watch the economics move with every choice.

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This is just the surface

The full model is the complete, interactive deep-dive, and every business here is built to the same standard: a live economics simulator you tune to your own numbers, an interactive 3D walkthrough, a location scorecard, an owner-fit assessment, buy-versus-build guidance, and the full breakdown of how it makes money and what quietly kills margin.