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How I work

In phases, with a way out at every one.

A hospitality project does not begin with a building. It begins with a decision: what this place wants to be, for whom, and on what economics. If that decision isn’t taken first, it gets taken later — by the walls, by money already spent, by habit. My work starts there, while changing your mind still costs little.

The first conversation

It costs nothing. We talk about where the property is, where it could be, and whether there's a genuine fit. If there isn't, I will say so.

One phase at a time

Every engagement is divided into phases, and each phase is contracted on its own: a fixed fee, a closed scope, a stated duration and a written list of what you will receive. The next phase begins only if you activate it, after you have the previous one in hand. Nothing in one phase needs the next to be useful.

No surprises at the end

There is no final presentation full of things you have never seen. Every conclusion is built and discussed with you along the way, at checkpoints set inside each phase, so that what arrives at the end is something you already recognise — and have already had the chance to challenge.

One person, and the right specialists

I work on every deliverable myself, and I am your only point of contact. When a phase needs an architect, an interior designer, a fire engineer or a cost consultant, I bring in partners I trust and coordinate them under one direction — engaged directly by you, with their costs in plain sight.

Things as they are

I don't need anything polished: figures, plans and systems as they are, even partial or untidy. Where a figure doesn't exist, the fact that it doesn't is already useful information. And I don't advise from a distance or arrive with a generic framework: the work happens on site, with the owner, the team and the people who are with your guests every day.

What an engagement looks like: three examples

Illustrative examples, drawn from the kinds of property I am asked to work with. They are not client cases: no names, no results, no figures.

Example 1

A wine estate that wants to welcome guests better

A family wine estate with a respected name and a busy season of visits and tastings. More people come every year, but few of them become customers the estate knows by name. A handful of rooms could be added; the owners fear that growth will cost the place its character.

Grow in value, not in numbers. What wears away a place’s character is not hospitality — it is quantity.

  1. Phase 1A · Readings and positioning

    about six weeks

    What it covers

    • Three years of bookings, customer records and direct sales: how many visitors leave a name, how many buy, what each is worth.
    • The guest’s journey from arrival to the months after — including an unannounced visit, made as the target guest would make it.
    • Booking, till and customer systems, and what it takes to recognise one person across all of them.
    • The estates that are genuinely comparable, and the ground this one can claim that no other can.
    • How a members’ circle or loyalty structure should work: tiers, what membership gives, and what it deliberately leaves out.

    What you hold at the end

    • An analysis report, in Italian, written to be read rather than filed.
    • Competitive set sheets and a recommended positioning.
    • The architecture of the members’ circle.
    • A working session with owners and management, with the immediate priorities.

    Then You decide whether to go on. What you hold already stands on its own: you could brief a website agency or restructure the tastings from it tomorrow.

  2. Phase 1B · Masterplan and economic model

    about three and a half months, with a checkpoint halfway

    What it covers

    • A destination concept: what the estate wants to be as a place, for whom, with what promise.
    • Demand at the top of the market: rates, occupancy by season, and how far the season can honestly be stretched.
    • What the existing spaces should become — number and size of rooms — tested with a partner design studio.
    • Restaurant, experiences and events: service model, staffing and expected margins, and the role each plays in the whole.
    • What running rooms will require — fire safety, training, food hygiene, licensing — so there are no surprises later.

    What you hold at the end

    • A masterplan ordered by dependency — what makes what possible — not by calendar: you set the pace.
    • An economic model with explicit assumptions, and one number to watch: what a guest is worth from the first visit on.
    • An operating model, the profile of the person who should run hospitality, and precise briefs for architects, the website and other partners.

    Then Every later decision — a restaurant, a wine shop, rooms, a club — stops being a bet and becomes a consequence.

Example 2

A historic estate becoming a hotel

A historic villa estate in the Tuscan countryside, bought to be turned into a place to stay. Early architectural ideas exist; the decision underneath them — villa rentals, a boutique hotel, or something in between — has not yet been taken.

Decide what the place should be before the architects decide it for you.

  1. Phase I · The founding decision

    about five weeks

    What it covers

    • The real market around the estate: formats that are growing, segments that are saturated, gaps still open.
    • The properties that are genuinely competitors, compared on format, size, concept, rates, season and sources of revenue.
    • Villa rentals, boutique hotel, hybrid: revenue, costs, management load and licensing compared for each.
    • The right number of keys, checked against the buildings — and whether the restaurant, spa, cellar or events each pay their way.
    • A reasoned go / no-go on the assumptions behind the existing plans.

    What you hold at the end

    • An analysis report with a recommended business model and size.
    • Two development scenarios side by side, each with a preliminary profit and loss.
    • A session with the owners to decide.

    Then You choose the model. If it isn’t a hotel, the next phase is redrawn around what you chose — not the other way round.

  2. Phase II · Concept and masterplan brief

    about three months, with a checkpoint at week six

    What it covers

    • The complete concept: story, category, guests, the experience of a stay, the identity.
    • What every building is for, and how guests, staff, luggage, linen, deliveries and waste move without ever crossing.
    • Every room the hotel needs behind the scenes — laundry, stores, staff areas, plant — with indicative surfaces.
    • Interior concept sessions with a partner studio, and an early fire-safety and feasibility check so the design isn’t redone at permit stage.
    • The restaurant and the revenue that belongs to the place: wine, food, the land, events.

    What you hold at the end

    • A concept document and a full functional programme.
    • A masterplan brief the architect can work from — written by someone who has had to run a hotel like this every day.

    Then If you want, I stay on to check the designers’ work against the operating requirements, through to opening. That is a separate engagement, scoped when you get there.

Example 3

A family restaurant that is loved, and emptier than it should be

A family restaurant with a long history and excellent reviews on every channel, and fewer covers every year. Lunch is weak; a second line of business under the same roof earns far more per hour; staff arrive and don’t stay; decisions are made between the partners and never written down. The owners want to know where the problem really is before they spend anything on a cure.

Measure the illness before prescribing the cure: no solutions and no prices until the numbers are in.

  1. Phase 1 · The check-up

    about three weeks

    What it covers

    • Everything that can be examined from outside: reputation on every channel, and what the negative reviews have in common.
    • The website in each language, the opening hours published in different places, and the path from search to a confirmed table.
    • Where the advertising money goes, and what the campaigns actually count as success.
    • The room and the organisation, as far as they can be read from outside: who answers for the service, who decides what.
    • Every statement labelled for what it is: a verified fact, my reading of it, or a hypothesis you need to confirm.

    What you hold at the end

    • A diagnosis in a handful of plain theses.
    • A register of the risks: what could get worse, and what is holding it back today.
    • An inventory of everything that can improve, sorted into zero-cost, low-cost and structural — with no priorities and no prices yet.
    • The exact list of figures the next phase needs, and where to find them, even as raw exports.

    Then If the diagnosis doesn’t convince you, we stop here, with no commitment. The zero-cost fixes — one set of opening hours everywhere, to begin with — can start either way.

  2. Phase 2 · Economic and operational analysis

    about three months

    What it covers

    • Two years of your own figures — till, costs, staff, bookings — so that trend can be told apart from season.
    • What each service earns, day by day: lunch, dinner and the second activity, and the break-even of each.
    • Whether fewer covers means fewer people or less spent per head. They are two different illnesses.
    • What staff turnover really costs, and whether the problem is finding people or keeping them.
    • The central decision, put to the numbers: whether the weak service should become something else — tested first as a pilot on a few days, not switched overnight.

    What you hold at the end

    • Profitability by service and by day of the week.
    • A documented recommendation on the central decision, with the design of the pilot.
    • An action plan for the following months, with a priority, an owner, a cost and an expected return beside each item.

    Then You can stop with no further obligation, holding the analysis and the plan. This is the moment to judge the diagnosis and the plan, not results: those are measured on the next season, not on the quietest months of the year.

  3. Phase 3 · Putting it to work, alongside you

    the rest of the year, month by month

    What it covers

    • The website, rebuilt or repaired — decided by who needs to change the opening hours, not by how it looks, and built only once the analysis has said what it has to sell.
    • Booking with instant confirmation, and advertising measured by bookings rather than visits.
    • Someone who answers for the room, shift by shift, and a short service manual: eight pages, not eighty.
    • Decision rights written down and signed by every partner, and a short weekly management meeting where strategy actually lives.
    • The pilot, if the numbers confirmed it.

    What you hold at the end

    • A monthly meeting in person, with the figures, and a one-page note: covers, bookings, where the bookings came from.
    • At the end, the season compared with the one before.
    • Domain, content, code and accounts in your name throughout, documented so that anyone else could take over.

    Then The work continues month by month, or ends. Either way, the decisions are written down and the numbers are yours.

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Let's talk about your property.

Every property is different. The first conversation is simply about understanding yours — where it is, where it could be, and whether there's a genuine fit. No obligation, no pitch deck.

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