Where Should a New Hotel Spend Its Pre-Opening Budget? Let Guest Reviews Rank It

Opening a hotel comes with a long list of expenses. Some are unavoidable. Others depend on what the owner decides to prioritize.

But how do you know where to spend first?

One useful place to look is at the hotels already operating in your market. Their guests have been telling them what works, what doesn't, and what they wish had been done differently.

Those reviews won't tell you how much a new cooling system costs or what it takes to improve soundproofing. But they can help you decide which problems are worth investigating before you commit your budget.

In this article, we'll look at how to use competitor guest reviews to prioritize pre-opening spending. We'll focus on four things: how serious the problem is, how widely it appears across hotels, how much control the owner has, and how difficult it would be to fix after opening.

Key findings at a glance

• The most-mentioned problem isn't always the biggest priority. In Lucerne, Front Desk & Staff has 9,618 Review Mentions across all 39 hotels, more than any weak aspect. Yet it scores 77.7% positive. Maintenance & Upkeep receives far fewer mentions, at 1,640 across 22 hotels, but scores just 24.7%.
• Some decisions become much harder to change after opening. Cooling, acoustics and bathroom specifications are easier to decide before guests arrive. Changing them later can mean expensive work inside an operating hotel.
• One problem can affect several parts of the guest experience. In Lucerne, complaints about missing or failing cooling appear alongside weaknesses in upkeep, value and noise.
• The same problem can mean different things in different markets. Value for Money scores 44.4% in Lucerne, where the top third of hotels reaches 55.0%. In Interlaken, the town scores 47.5%, but the top third reaches 68.1%. That difference matters when deciding what a new hotel should prioritize.
• A spending priority is not a cost estimate. Guest reviews help identify where guests experience problems. They don't tell you what it will cost to solve them.

The budget meeting is next week

Imagine you're opening a hotel in Lucerne. You're six months away from welcoming your first guests.

You've already reviewed what people are saying about nearby hotels. You know the recurring problems: cooling and maintenance, rooms that don't feel worth the rate, bathrooms, noise and staff service.

That's useful information. But there's a problem.

Everything seems important.

You have a limited budget, and every department has something it wants to spend money on. The engineering team wants improvements to the building. Operations needs people and training. The commercial team wants to make sure the rooms are priced correctly.

You can't fund everything equally.

What you need now is a way to decide what comes first.

Not an exact cost. Reviews can't give you that.

You need to know which problems deserve a quote, which decisions must be made before construction is finished, and which items can reasonably wait.

Our previous article looked at how to identify opening-day risks from competitor reviews.

This article takes the next step: which risks should you deal with first?

Rank the priorities. Don't guess the costs.

There's an important distinction to make before we go further.

Guest reviews can help you rank problems. They cannot tell you what fixing those problems will cost.

Consider a hotel receiving repeated complaints about cooling.

Some guests say their rooms are too hot. Others mention air conditioning that doesn't work properly.

That tells you something is wrong with the guest experience. It doesn't tell you why.

The problem could be a faulty unit. It could be an ageing building. Or the cooling system may have been designed for a different use.

Each explanation calls for a different solution, and each solution comes with a different cost.

An engineer needs to identify the actual problem before anyone can put a reliable number against it.

That's why this method is about deciding what to investigate first. It does not calculate returns, payback periods or savings.

Instead, it helps an owner answer a practical question:

Which problems should we take to an engineer, a surveyor or a supplier first?

Reviews show you where to look. The people responsible for fixing the problem tell you what the work will cost.

Two terms worth understanding

Before looking at the numbers, here's what two terms in our analysis mean.

Review Mentions measures how many times guests mention a particular aspect of their stay.

These are not necessarily unique reviews. One guest review can mention several things, such as the room, breakfast and staff.

Hotels Reporting tells us how many hotels have a particular aspect among their top eight most-mentioned topics.

It shows how prominent that topic is across the market. If a hotel doesn't report an aspect in its top eight, that doesn't mean the problem is absent.

Both measures matter when deciding how much confidence to place in a finding.

Not every pre-opening decision has the same deadline

Before ranking your spending priorities, it helps to separate them by when decisions need to be made.

A hotel opening budget isn't one big pot of money. Different decisions happen at different stages, and some become much more expensive to change once the hotel is operating.

We can group them into three decision windows.

1. Design and specification

This covers cooling systems, acoustics, glazing, bathroom fittings, plumbing and electrical specifications.

These decisions are usually made while the building is being designed or completed.

They're important because changing them after opening can mean disrupting rooms, taking facilities out of service or carrying out expensive retrofits.

This is the capital lane.

2. Pre-opening operations

This includes hiring, staff training, handover inspections, testing rooms and putting maintenance contracts in place.

These decisions still need attention before opening, but they're generally easier to adjust in the final weeks.

For example, you can improve a check-in procedure without rebuilding the reception area.

This is the operational lane.

3. Commercial set-up

This is where you decide your opening rates, how additional charges are communicated, and what guests are promised when they book.

A hotel can have a good room and still disappoint guests if the price creates expectations the property can't meet.

Or guests may feel misled when charges appear that weren't clearly explained.

These decisions usually require less capital. They're mainly about making sure the room, the price and the promise match.

This is the partly structural lane, because pricing depends on the market and the hotel's positioning as well as the owner's decisions.

The point is simple: when you solve a problem can matter just as much as how much you spend solving it.

Four questions to help rank pre-opening spending

Once you've identified the weak areas in your competitor set, you can start putting them in order.

At SENTEEZ, we look at four factors.

The thresholds and weights below are working defaults. They're there to help teams make decisions consistently, not to act as fixed statistical rules.

Every number should also be considered alongside its Review Mentions and the number of hotels reporting it.

Factor 1: How serious is the problem?

Start with the percentage of positive guest sentiment.

SENTEEZ uses around 85% positive as a fixed default for a healthy result.

As a general guide:

• Below about 50% positive indicates a severe weakness.
• Between 50% and 70% points to a moderate weakness.
• Above 70% is the standard guests expect.

But the percentage alone isn't enough.

You also need to know how much evidence sits behind it.

An aspect with fewer than 50 Review Mentions, or fewer than three hotels reporting it, is too thin to rank reliably.

A poor result based on a small sample deserves investigation, not an immediate spending decision.

Factor 2: How common is the problem?

Next, ask how many hotels are experiencing it.

A complaint appearing at one property may reflect that property's building, management or operations.

But if the same weakness appears across a third or more of the competitor set, it starts to look like a wider market pattern.

That distinction matters.

You don't want to redesign your hotel around an isolated complaint. Equally, you don't want to ignore something guests are consistently unhappy about across the market.

Factor 3: How much can the owner control?

Not every guest complaint can be solved by spending money.

A hotel can improve its staff training, replace bathroom fittings or make its charges clearer.

It can't move itself closer to a railway station.

SENTEEZ uses four default controllability classes to help separate these situations.

These weights are adjustable defaults, not universal rules.

What's important is that the team agrees on its assumptions and makes them visible.

Factor 4: How difficult will it be to change after opening?

This is where pre-opening planning differs from running an existing hotel.

In an operating property, you might start with the easiest improvements and work toward the more difficult ones.

Before opening, that approach can be risky.

Some difficult decisions need to be made early precisely because they become harder to change later.

Take soundproofing.

If you're still finalizing the building specification, you may be able to improve the acoustics before rooms are finished.

If you discover the same problem after opening, you're dealing with occupied rooms, potential disruption and retrofit work.

On the other hand, a small operational improvement that can be made in week three doesn't necessarily need to compete for scarce capital before opening.

Put the four factors together, and you get a useful principle:

Start with the problems guests care about, the owner can influence, and the opening date makes harder to fix.

A hypothetical Lucerne hotel: What should be priced first?

Let's return to our hypothetical hotel in Lucerne.

We've identified five areas that deserve attention. Now we need to decide which ones should be investigated and priced first.

The table below applies the four factors to those risks.

This is an illustration, not a real hotel or an actual budget allocation.

The ranking tells us which items to take for quotes, surveys or further assessment. It doesn't tell us what those items will cost.

This example uses the Lucerne town benchmark: 39 hotels, 19,632 reviews and 50,111 Review Mentions, collected over a 12-month window. The hotel and owner are hypothetical.

Why staff falls to the bottom of the list

At first, this might seem surprising.

Front Desk & Staff is the most-mentioned aspect in Lucerne, with 9,618 Review Mentions across all 39 hotels.

Surely that should make it a priority?

Staffing is important. Every new hotel needs a capable team, proper training and people who understand what guests expect.

But the question here is where to put the next portion of a limited pre-opening budget.

At 77.7% positive, staff performance is much stronger than the weakest aspects in the market.

Hiring and training should be done well, especially around local knowledge and flexibility at arrival and departure. But spending heavily beyond that may not be the best first move when other problems are performing much worse.

The most-mentioned topic isn't necessarily the one that needs the most money.

Why cooling moves to the top

Cooling and upkeep tell a different story.

Maintenance & Upkeep scores just 24.7% positive in Lucerne.

Guests describe missing or failing cooling, ageing properties, plumbing problems and electrical faults inside rooms.

These comments don't prove what caused each issue.

But they do point toward a recurring set of problems worth investigating before opening.

And cooling deserves particular attention because it can affect several parts of the guest experience.

A room that's too hot may lead to a maintenance complaint. It can also make guests feel the room isn't worth the rate. And if the only way to cool down is to open a window, outside noise may become another problem.

That doesn't mean every weak score has the same cause.

It means a cooling decision made during design may influence several guest experience outcomes.

Why the ranking can change

This order isn't meant to be fixed for every hotel.

Imagine the owner inspects the site and discovers a busy road or a nightlife venue next door.

Noise could immediately become the most urgent design decision.

Or suppose an engineer assesses the cooling system and finds the work is easier than originally expected.

Cooling may remain the first priority, but it becomes simpler to schedule and price.

That's how the method should work.

The ranking helps you make a decision based on what you know. When better information comes in, you update the order.

The important thing is to know which assumptions are driving the decision.

Same method, different town

One of the biggest mistakes a new hotel can make is copying the priorities of another market.

A problem that's serious in Lucerne may be less urgent in Interlaken.

Even when the overall scores look similar, the better-performing hotels can tell a different story.

Here's how three aspects compare.

Town benchmarks show % Positive, with the number of hotels reporting each aspect. Interlaken includes 42 hotels, 15,766 reviews and 42,065 Review Mentions. The top and bottom thirds are calculated by sorting hotels within each town by their SENTEEZ rating.

This comparison explains why a pre-opening budget needs local evidence.

If you copied Lucerne's priorities directly into an Interlaken project, you might put too much emphasis on noise and too little attention on value.

In Interlaken, value complaints often come back to what the guest receives for the price.

Some describe dated rooms or missing basics. Others mention charges they weren't expecting.

These are things a new hotel can address before opening.

You can make sure the room meets the promise, and you can explain charges clearly before a guest books.

Neither necessarily requires a major capital project.

The same approach has also been used in SENTEEZ's independent Dubai Marina research, covering 11,127 guest reviews across 8 hotels and summarized in a pre-opening brief.

That work was independent market research, not a client engagement.

Who makes the decision, and where does the money come from?

A ranked list is only useful if it reaches the right people.

The owner doesn't personally decide every technical detail, and the general manager shouldn't be expected to price building work.

Each spending category needs its own decision-maker.

Capital spending: Owner, asset manager and project team

This covers items such as cooling, glazing, acoustics and building specifications.

The owner or asset manager works with the project team to decide what needs attention.

The next step is to take the evidence to the appropriate specialist.

That might mean a condition survey, an engineering assessment or a supplier quote before the specification is finalized.

Operational spending: General manager and department heads

This includes recruitment, training, room testing and operating procedures.

The general manager and department heads should know what needs checking, who is responsible and when each task must be completed.

The work is planned through the opening operating budget.

Commercial decisions: Revenue team, reservations and owner

This is where room rates, booking descriptions and additional charges need attention.

The revenue or reservations lead should make sure the rate reflects what the rooms can actually deliver.

Every charge that guests need to know about should also be clear before they arrive.

The important distinction is that identifying the right budget category doesn't tell you the amount required.

Actual costs still need to come from quotes, surveys and technical assessments.

Common mistakes when prioritizing a pre-opening budget

Even with good guest data, it's easy to draw the wrong conclusion.

Here are some mistakes worth avoiding.

Spending first on whatever gets mentioned most

A popular topic isn't automatically the most serious weakness.

Look at the positive sentiment, how many hotels share the problem, whether the owner can influence it, and how difficult it will be to change after opening.

All four matter.

Trying to fix things the owner cannot control

Location is a good example.

If guests complain that a hotel is far from the city centre, that matters for how the property is positioned and marketed.

But it isn't something the pre-opening team can fix with a maintenance or operations budget.

Assuming every weak market score is easy to improve

A low town average doesn't always mean a new hotel can easily do better.

If the town scores around 25% and its strongest hotel reaches only 43%, that tells a different story from a market where the best property reaches 77%.

The difference is worth investigating before making promises or allocating money.

Treating a priority list as a financial forecast

A ranking shows where attention should go first.

It doesn't predict returns, guarantee savings or prove that a particular investment will produce a particular guest score.

Leaving design decisions until after opening

Some problems become much harder to solve once guests are staying in the building.

If cooling, acoustics or plumbing need attention, it's better to investigate them while the design and specification can still change.

Acting on too little data

A complaint supported by 20 mentions from two hotels may be worth looking into.

But it's not strong enough to become a ranked spending priority under this method.

Small samples should lead to questions, not confident conclusions.

What guest review analysis cannot tell you

Guest reviews are useful, but they have limits. Those limits matter when real money is involved.

They cannot tell you what a fix costs.

This method does not calculate costs, payback, NOI or EBITDA. Those figures require a diagnosed problem, a priced scope of work, a baseline and observed results.

They describe existing hotels, not your future guests.

Your hotel may attract a different type of guest or sit in a different price category.

A competitor's weakness may not affect your property in exactly the same way.

They show patterns, not proven causes.

If guests complain about noisy rooms, the reviews don't prove whether the problem is glazing, walls, building layout or something else.

The comments tell you what to investigate.

Not every aspect has equal coverage.

Themes supported by fewer than 50 Review Mentions or fewer than three hotels are too thin to benchmark in this method.

And because Hotels Reporting measures whether a topic appears among a hotel's top eight aspects, an absent topic doesn't necessarily mean the hotel has no problem with it.

They do not replace a feasibility study.

Guest intelligence should sit alongside market research, design, engineering, brand and financial planning.

The thresholds and weights used here are working guidelines, not statistical tests.

The aim is to make better-informed decisions, not to replace professional judgment.

Turn your competitor reviews into a pre-opening spending plan

Every hotel opens into a market where guests already have expectations.

They know what a good room should feel like. They know what frustrates them. And they're already describing those experiences in public reviews.

The challenge is turning that information into something an owner and pre-opening team can actually use.

SENTEEZ Pre-Opening Intelligence helps build a competitor set for a specific market, identify recurring complaints, rank the risks and turn them into a dated pre-opening plan.

It's available as part of the SENTEEZ Enterprise plan.

[LINK: Pre-Opening Intelligence / Enterprise contact page]

Three things to do before your next budget meeting

You don't need to turn every guest complaint into a spending request.

Start with these three steps.

1. Put every risk into the right decision window

Look at your existing risk list.

For each item, decide whether it belongs to design, operations or commercial set-up.

Then ask whether the decision must be made before opening, or whether it can reasonably be adjusted later.

2. Rank the risks using the four factors

Look at the size of the gap, how many hotels share it, how much control you have, and how difficult the problem would be to fix after opening.

Set aside findings supported by too little data.

Make your assumptions clear so that the team understands why one item sits above another.

3. Take the top priorities to the right specialists

Once you have an order, start getting the information you actually need to make spending decisions.

That might be an engineering assessment, a site survey or a supplier quote.

Bring the guest evidence with you, but let the people who understand the building and its costs determine the scope of work.

A strong hotel rating can hide serious weaknesses.

A pre-opening budget spread evenly across every complaint can do the same.

The goal isn't to spend on everything guests mention. It's to identify what matters most, while you still have the chance to get it right.

About the data and methodology

Data, method and citation

Source: Publicly available guest reviews, analyzed over a 12-month window and refreshed quarterly.

• Lucerne: 39 hotels, 19,632 reviews and 50,111 aspect-tagged Review Mentions.
• Interlaken: 42 hotels, 15,766 reviews and 42,065 Review Mentions.
• Dubai Marina: 11,127 reviews across 8 hotels, analyzed through independent research.

Method: SENTEEZ uses aspect-based sentiment analysis to understand what guests say about different parts of their hotel experience.

The SENTEEZ rating is calculated from review content. It is not copied from a booking platform.

Each hotel's eight most prominent aspects are reported. Aspects with fewer than 50 Review Mentions or fewer than three hotels are considered too thin to benchmark.

To calculate the top and bottom thirds, hotels within each town are sorted by their SENTEEZ rating.

The controllability classes used in the ranking are SENTEEZ defaults and can be adjusted.

Independence: SENTEEZ conducts independent research. The hotel and owner in the Lucerne example are hypothetical.

The Dubai Marina research was not commissioned by a hotel and was not a client engagement. No transaction is described or implied.

Limitations: The findings reflect what guests say about their experiences, not what happens behind the scenes at a hotel.

Recurring themes can point to problems worth investigating, but they do not prove the cause.

Guest sentiment should be considered alongside market, design, engineering and financial analysis.

Related reading

• What Your Competitors' Guests Complain About Is Your Opening-Day Risk
• The Pre-Opening SOP Checklist
• Hotel Pre-Opening Intelligence Brief: Dubai Marina