You are Marisol Villanueva, the new director of revenue at Casa Palma, a 200-room boutique hotel in a converted colonial mansion in Cartagena de Indias. It is the last Sunday of December 2025. Before January begins you must tell the owner which of the three revenue plans on the table you will run for the year.
The situation
Casa Palma has 6,000 room nights to sell every month, all at one blended rate: $112 today, unchanged since your predecessor left in August. The guest score stands at 4.1 out of 5. Only 24% of individual bookings come through the hotel's own channels; the rest arrive through the online travel agencies, which take 18% of the rate on every night they sell, about $20 today, against $4 for a direct booking. That contract cannot be reopened before the end of 2027.
Vela Hospitality, a Miami fund, bought the hotel in 2024 and plans to sell it in 2028. Its managing director, Rosa Villarreal, will judge your year on a 100-point index: RevPAR growth (30), RevPAR against seven comparable boutiques (25), net RevPAR after distribution cost (20), total revenue per room including food and drink (15) and guest score (10). Operating profit is reported to her every month, but it does not score.
January is the softest month of the year; July and August the strongest. In September a 150-room international-brand hotel opens on the far side of the walled city. Three colleagues have left you three plans: Camila Restrepo, in sales, argues for volume; Andrés Mejía, the general manager, for direct business and rate; Fernando Escobar, the finance director, for margin. All three start from the same data. None has tested a plan against the index.