Top 10 Operational Challenges for Hotel Groups: 2026 Guide

The biggest operational challenges for hotel groups are staffing, consistency across properties, disconnected technology and controlling costs as the group grows. Most of them get harder with every property you add, because each new site multiplies the people, systems and data you have to keep aligned.

Running one hotel well is hard enough. Running five or 10 means the same problems show up in every property, just slightly differently, and the head office only sees them once they've already cost money. Below are the 10 challenges we see most often in Australian hotel groups, and a practical way to solve each one. Many come back to running each property on separate systems, which is why more groups are moving to NetSuite for hotel groups.

If that's where your group is heading, our NetSuite implementation team can show you how other Australian hotel groups have made the move.

1. Staffing and Labour Costs

Finding and keeping staff remains the number one pressure. Accommodation and food services had 34,000 job vacancies in May 2026, according to the ABS Job Vacancies release, and Deloitte's 2025 European hotel industry survey found labour and workforce challenges remain the industry's top risk.

How to solve it - track labour as a percentage of revenue for each property, each week, not just at month-end. Combine that with structured onboarding and cross-training so staff can move between properties when one site is short.

2. Maintaining a Consistent Guest Experience

Guests expect the same standard at every property in a group. Without shared procedures and training, service quality drifts from site to site, and reviews show it quickly.

How to solve it - document standard operating procedures once and apply them across every property. Review guest feedback by property side by side, so a slipping site stands out early.

3. Technology Integration

Most hotel groups run a PMS, POS, booking platforms and accounting software that don't talk to each other. Staff re-key data between them, errors creep in and nobody has a single view of performance.

How to solve it - connect front-of-house systems to one financial platform so bookings, takings and costs flow through automatically. Our guide to hospitality management systems explains how groups connect these layers and what it changes for finance.

4. Revenue Management and Group Bookings

Pricing rooms against fluctuating demand is difficult on its own. Group bookings add another layer: room blocks held across dates or properties, deposits, attrition clauses, rooming lists that change late, and a single invoice that needs splitting across properties and revenue streams.

How to solve it - manage group blocks in the PMS with clear release dates and deposit rules, and make sure deposits and final invoices flow into finance against the right property. Review pickup against each block regularly so unsold rooms go back on sale in time.

5. Sustainability and Environmental Responsibility

Guests, corporate clients and investors increasingly expect hotel groups to reduce energy use, waste and emissions. The challenge is measuring progress consistently across different buildings.

How to solve it - set a small number of measures, such as energy, water and waste per occupied room, and report them the same way for every property. That turns sustainability from a policy into something you can manage.

6. Managing Costs and Scale Across Multiple Properties

Every new property adds another set of suppliers, another payroll and often another accounting file. Costs get harder to compare, and consolidating results at month-end takes longer each time the group grows.

How to solve it - run every property on one platform that reports each site individually and the group as a whole, with shared purchasing and supplier agreements. Our guide to managing multiple hospitality locations covers how groups set this up.

7. Compliance with Regulations and Standards

Hotel groups manage food safety, responsible service of alcohol, workplace health and safety, award wage obligations and privacy requirements, often with different rules across states. Keeping every property compliant is a constant task.

How to solve it - keep compliance records, training and licence renewals in one central system with reminders, rather than in each property's own files. Regular internal checks catch gaps before a regulator does.

8. Customer Loyalty and Retention

Travellers have more choice than ever, and many book through third-party platforms that own the customer relationship. Winning repeat stays means recognising guests across every property in the group.

How to solve it - hold guest data in one place so preferences and history follow the guest from property to property. A group-wide loyalty offer rewards guests for staying within your portfolio.

9. Crisis Management and Risk

Natural disasters, outages, economic shocks and public health events can close a property or empty it overnight. Groups without a plan lose time working out who does what.

How to solve it - maintain a written continuity plan for each property, test it annually and keep cash and cost visibility at group level so leadership can act quickly when revenue drops.

10. Changing Guest Preferences

Guest expectations keep shifting, from wellness and experiential travel to contactless check-in and flexible bookings. What worked five years ago may not match what guests want now.

How to solve it - use booking and feedback data across the group to see which offers and room types are growing, then trial changes at one property before rolling them out to the rest.

Solving Hotel Group Challenges at the Source

Most of these challenges share a root cause: each property runs on its own systems, so head office sees problems late and fixes them one site at a time. Connecting properties onto one platform gives you the visibility to solve them across the group at once.

DWR has helped Australian hospitality groups do this for more than 15 years. Speak with a NetSuite specialist about the challenges your group is facing.

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