Business Continuity Playbook for Independent Hotels
Albert BarraSeptember 24, 2026 · 2 min read
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BYAlbert BarraHospitality · Strategy · Leadership · Marketing
A hotel business continuity playbook should not attempt to predict every emergency. It should protect essential services when systems, staff, supplies or capacity are disrupted. This practical framework helps independent hotels define priorities, authority, reduced-service operations, communication, recovery and regular testing.
At six forty on a high-occupancy morning, the hotel remained open, but several of the conditions that made normal operations possible had disappeared. Water pressure was unstable, an essential delivery had not arrived, two team members reported that they would be unable to come in, and the supplier due to work on a technical installation had still not confirmed their arrival time. None of these problems alone justified closing the property. Together, however, they had turned an ordinary day into an operation requiring rapid decisions about what to preserve, what to scale back and what to stop promising.
The initial response was reasonably good because experienced professionals were present and willing to help. It was also slower, more expensive and more exhausting than necessary. Each department protected what it knew best, but nobody had a complete view of the hotel's priorities. Front Office tried to contain guest uncertainty, Housekeeping reorganised rooms, Maintenance pursued diagnoses, and Food and Beverage substituted products on the fly. We were working hard, although for too long it was unclear whether we were all solving the same problem.
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