WHAT DOES A HOTEL DIRECTOR DO?

Published: Jul 22, 2025 - The Hotel Director oversees all operational and financial aspects of the property, recruiting and managing staff to deliver exceptional guest services and maximize revenue and profitability. This role leads the development and execution of strategic business plans and annual budgets, ensures compliance with safety and financial policies, and maintains high standards in customer experience and operational excellence. The director also fosters a results-driven culture through training initiatives, community engagement, and innovative programs tailored to evolving market conditions.

A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Hotel Director

1. Hotel Director Duties

  • Operations Management: Supervise the functioning of all product areas of the location (Front of the House, Back of the House, F&B, Kitchen, CoWork, Experience), optimizing all opportunities.
  • Stakeholder Communication: Connect with the Country and Global Product leads to ensure proper functioning of products in the location.
  • Inventory Control: Ensure the location is properly stocked with all the necessary supplies and equipment.
  • Financial Management: Manage the location’s P&L and reporting, ensuring that all revenue, costs, and data are consistent across all channels.
  • Accounting Compliance: Ensure proper accounting recording and compliance with local accounting and legalities.
  • Process Adherence: Controls and systems for accounting on site are followed at all times and are in line with Selina's guidelines.
  • Legal Compliance: Ensure compliance with all location-applicable laws and practices and report all issues that arise or may disrupt the business.
  • Team Leadership: Act as the direct manager for all the location Managers.
  • Talent Acquisition: Lead and support the recruitment and selection process for open positions at the location.

2. Hotel Director Details

  • Workforce Planning: Create and manage the staffing plan for the location.
  • Staffing Optimization: Ensure that staffing has a low impact on P&L whilst maintaining high levels of service and experience.
  • Training Management: Training assessment and delivery of training.
  • Payroll Administration: Revise and manage the location’s payroll, benefits, and incentive plans.
  • Safety Supervision: Supervise the implementation of the environmental health and safety plan at the location.
  • Revenue Achievement: Meet and exceed the location’s revenue goals.
  • Sales Strategy: Establish and manage the sales strategy for the location.
  • Partnership Development: Generate local partnerships to promote the Selina Brand.
  • Marketing Management: Create and manage the location’s marketing plan following brand guidelines.
  • Brand Compliance: Ensure proper use of the brand guidelines.

3. Hotel Director Job Summary

  • Talent Management: Recruits, selects, trains, and manages employees to deliver superior guest services and quality products that will lead to maximizing revenue and profitability goals.
  • Customer Service Leadership: Creates and maintains customer-driven operations, empowering hotel staff to excel in superior customer care.
  • Business Planning: Develops, recommends, implements, and manages the hotel's annual budget and long-term business plan.
  • Profit Optimization: Achieves budgeted sales and maximum profitability.
  • Program Development: Creates new programs in response to market conditions and revenue opportunities.
  • Financial Controls: Protects the hotel's financial assets by properly administering policies and procedures for handling cash, credit cards, accounts payable, accounts receivable, payroll, and all other financial transactions.
  • Safety Administration: Administers policies and procedures for protecting the safety of guests and employees.
  • Reporting Management: Prepares daily reports for owners.
  • Performance Evaluation: Ensures regular assessment and review of all hotel personnel by appropriate management staff.
  • Training Coordination: Coordinates internal training and development programs.
  • Community Engagement: Maintains a high personal visibility throughout the property and the community.

4. Hotel Director Accountabilities

  • Property Launch: Pre-opening and opening of a new property containing various F&B venues.
  • Strategic Leadership: Functioning as the primary strategic leader of the hotel with responsibility for all aspects of the operation, including guest and associate satisfaction, human resources, financial performance, and sales and revenue generation.
  • Leadership Development: Identifies leadership and fosters career development.
  • Team Building: Creates a cohesive leadership team and positive business environment that consistently delivers results.
  • Staffing Management: Establish staffing requirements and support in recruiting, selecting, hiring, training, and developing the pre-opening team.
  • Market Strategy: Develops deployment strategies to market property to continue to grow market share.
  • Revenue Management: Supports the sales strategy by encouraging effective revenue management practices.
  • Market Analysis: Reviews the report, competitive shopping reports, and uses other resources to maintain an awareness of the property’s market position.
  • Capital Planning: Ensures capital expenditure funds are being budgeted and deployed effectively.

5. Hotel Director Functions

  • Performance Accountability: Holds team accountable for successful performance positively.
  • Open-Door Leadership: Utilizes an open-door approach to leadership.
  • Goal Communication: Communicates a clear and consistent message regarding property goals to produce desired results.
  • Team Engagement: Fosters team member engagement to provide excellent service.
  • Operations Participation: Participates in daily operations to ensure strong and sustained interdepartmental communications, problem resolution, and guest satisfaction.
  • Forecast Management: Ensures accurate revenue, expense, and labor forecasts and execution.
  • Cost Control: Use business forecasts to manage costs by scheduling labor by staffing guidelines, controlling other expenses by business demand levels, and controlling utility expenses by energy management and building operations standards.
  • Ownership Collaboration: Partner closely with ownership and work to understand their priorities and exceed their expectations through proactive and ongoing communication.

6. Hotel Director Job Description

  • Maintenance Policy Development: Establish Maintenance policies and procedures to implement the directives of senior management.
  • Budget Management: Prepare and submit financial estimates for approval. Prepare department budget and monitor expenditure of funds in the budget.
  • Facility Assessment: Assess facilities regularly and establish a priority for maintenance, renovation, or replacement.
  • Preventive Maintenance: Oversee preventive maintenance and safety inspection programs in conjunction with engineering services and maintenance staff.
  • Leadership Selection: Select or approve the promotion of leadership staff and direct their training.
  • Engineering Supervision: Manage, schedule, coach, and supervise Engineering associates, including hiring, training, evaluations, recognition, development, communication, and corrective action.
  • Conflict Resolution: Confer with workers to resolve grievances.
  • Project Planning: Plan capital projects with internal leaders and external suppliers and lead or Project manage the projects.

7. Hotel Director Overview

  • Operational Improvement: Manage and improve operational practices
  • Resource Allocation: Allocate resources and materials to meet project deadlines
  • Trend Analysis: Track and forecast operational trends and analysis
  • Operations Oversight: Provide daily operations oversight for outside teams
  • Policy Formalization: Formalize policies and procedures by HR regulations
  • Travel Flexibility: Must be willing to travel up to 60% of the time
  • Sales Support: Commit to supporting the sales team's goals and territories
  • Brand Networking: Utilize networking to lead the way in brand recognition
  • Sales Analysis: Regularly analyze sales statistics and track trends for forecasting
  • Sales Innovation: Utilize creative and innovative sales strategies

8. Hotel Director Details and Accountabilities

  • Relationship Management: Be a relationship builder with investors, developers, and industry partners, which implies fantastic interpersonal skills
  • Agreement Negotiation: Identify, qualify, evaluate, engage, negotiate, and close hotel management agreements that meet the established standards of RHG’s seven brands
  • Brand Representation: Representative of RHG, needs to keep up with industry trends, represent RHG at industry events, promote Radisson Hotel Group, and enhance public recognition of the company and its brands by projecting a favorable image
  • Presentation Preparation: Preparation of the development team presentation (PowerPoint decks, brand collateral) materials for major investment conferences, internal meetings, and owner presentations
  • Task Execution: Carry out additional tasks by Radisson Hotel Group Management that are not specifically detailed in this job description
  • Policy Adherence: Adhere to Radisson Hotel Group policies and procedures, and perform all duties and responsibilities in a timely and efficient manner, by company policies and procedures to achieve the overall objectives of this position
  • Housekeeping Leadership: Lead, hire, and train hotel housekeeping staff to adhere to high standards of cleanliness and customer satisfaction
  • Housekeeping Operations: Monitor all the daily operations of the housekeeping department, including the cleanliness of all guest rooms and public areas daily
  • Inventory Management: Oversee the housekeeping department budget, take inventory, and ensure there is a stock of adequate cleaning supplies
  • Equipment Maintenance: Make sure all cleaning equipment is in good working condition and schedule repairs
  • Room Inspection: Keep a record of areas cleaned by room attendants and make a note of any issues, such as room damage or maintenance requests

9. Hotel Director Roles

  • Legal Compliance: Adheres to federal, state, and local laws, employment-related laws, and regulations
  • Hotel Operations: Performs duties in all aspects of hotel operations
  • Team Supervision: Directly manages an Assistant General Manager who supervises a total of 8 to 10 employees on the Property
  • Unit Management: Responsible for the overall direction, coordination, and evaluation of this unit
  • Social Media Monitoring: Reviews and monitors the Social Media websites to ensure timely and appropriate responses to postings
  • Market Research: Responsible for market analysis and business positioning research of the hotel
  • Marketing Planning: Responsible for formulating the hotel marketing budget, preparing the hotel's annual marketing plan and marketing plan, and promoting the implementation of the marketing activity plan
  • Product Promotion: Responsible for planning, packaging, and promoting hotel products, enriching service content
  • Project Planning: Hotel project planning function layout, positioning analysis, design proposal
  • Process Supervision: Supervise the implementation process and provide company managers with a report on the business follow-up process

10. Hotel Director Key Accountabilities

  • Lifecycle Management: Play as team leader to manage the Openings and C&CR (Conversions and Contract Renewals) lifecycle from day-to-day management to mid and long-term strategic planning
  • Project Leadership: Lead and guide the regional Opening Manager / Director to achieve on-time and on-brand openings for each project, and a smooth handover to Operations Leadership Team for successful ramp-up performance both commercially and in guest experiences
  • PIP Delivery: Lead and guide the C&CR team to deliver quality PIP (Property Improvement Plan) to achieve high-quality conversion / rebranding assets entering the IHG portfolio and support the existing IHG properties meeting new standards and market expectations for an on-brand experience throughout the life cycle
  • Strategic Planning: Departmental activities, short-term and long-term strategic planning, performance tracking, and enhancement of the team culture
  • Project Support: Lead the opening support for halo projects, involving cross-functional support with timely updates to Head / VP HLG (Hotel Lifecycle and Growth)
  • Tool Management: Ensuring all opening/project management tools and systems are up to date to meet the requirements of the new WoW (Ways of Working) and innovating new tools to deliver a full lifecycle management
  • Team Management: Staffing, scheduling, and managing the team members of the 3 operating departments, including Housekeeping, Front Office, and Engineering
  • Reporting Line: Reports directly to the GM
  • Cleanliness Oversight: Responsible for the exceptional cleanliness of the entire hotel and exterior
  • Inventory Control: Manage inventory and implement cost-saving controls throughout the hotel
  • Budget Management: Manage the departmental expense and labor budgets for all 3 departments
Relevant Information
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