What's included
A refurbishment of a trading hotel is a construction project with a revenue meter running next to it. The template sequences the work around occupancy rather than around trade availability:
- Feasibility & revenue planning, Condition survey, scope and standards, the room-night displacement model and the closure strategy that follows from it. Milestone: capital approved.
- Design & procurement, Concept and detailed design, FF&E specification, a full mock-up room, and procurement against lead times that decide when the first floor can close. Milestone: mock-up room signed off.
- Back-of-house & lifts, Riser and service surveys, lift modernisation one car at a time, staff areas, plant and chiller replacement, the works that affect every floor and cannot be done twice.
- Guest floor closures, Floors taken out of inventory in sequence, stripped, fitted out, snagged and returned to sale. Milestone: last guest floor handed back.
- Public areas & F&B, Lobby, restaurant, bar, meeting rooms and spa, scheduled into the low season with temporary provision for guests in the meantime.
- Handover & re-marketing, Commissioning, staff retraining on the new product, photography, rate repositioning and the return to full inventory. Milestone: full inventory restored.
Who uses this template
Hotel owners, asset managers, and refurbishment contractors use this to renovate an operating property while it stays open. It phases floor closures, manages room-night loss, and schedules noisy works, lift upgrades, and back-of-house jobs into windows that protect guests, balancing the pace of works against lost revenue and comfort.
How to customize it
- Replace the floor rows with your own key counts and closure lengths, then total the room-nights lost per month against your forecast.
- Shift public area works into your genuine low season, for most hotels that is a narrower window than the annual budget implies.
- Set the noisy-works window to the hours your operations team can actually defend, and keep drilling and demolition inside it.
- Add a lift row per car; modernising them simultaneously is almost never acceptable in an operating hotel.
- Insert a decant plan if you have to relocate guests mid-stay, and staff it, it is real front-office work, not a rounding error.
- Mark capital approval, mock-up sign-off, last floor handback and full inventory restored as milestones.
Scheduling tips
- Build the mock-up room before you order anything. It is the only cheap opportunity to find that the joinery does not fit, the sockets are wrong and the bathroom detail leaks, and the operations team should sleep in it.
- Do not close two floors on top of each other unless the model says you can sell around it. Compression pricing works until you have no rooms left to compress into.
- Sequence vertically, not horizontally. Risers, waste stacks and lift shafts run through every floor, so plan the service works as one continuous vertical campaign rather than repeating them per floor.
- Protect the guest route. Contractor access, hoardings, waste removal and material lifts all need a path that never crosses the lobby during check-in hours; put those constraints on the chart as they will shape shift patterns.
- Keep one lift for guests at all times. Lift modernisation is the single works item most likely to generate complaints and refunds, and doing cars sequentially costs weeks but saves the review score.
- Baseline at mock-up sign-off. Before that the scope is still moving; after it, every week of slippage has a known room-night cost you can report.
Related templates
- Hotel Pre-Opening Critical Path Template
- Free Home Renovation Gantt Chart Template
- Free Construction Gantt Chart Template
- Browse all Gantt chart templates
Frequently asked questions
How long does a hotel refurbishment take?
A phased refurbishment of a mid-sized operating hotel commonly runs 12-24 months, because floors are closed in sequence rather than all at once. The template uses an eighteen-month schedule you can compress by closing more keys at a time, at a revenue cost.
Should the hotel close completely instead?
Sometimes, and the displacement model is what tells you. A full closure is faster and cheaper to build but surrenders all revenue and risks losing corporate accounts and staff. Model both before committing; this template is built for the phased option.
How do I schedule noisy work in an operating hotel?
Agree a fixed daily window, typically mid-morning to late afternoon, and treat it as a hard constraint on the programme rather than a request to the contractor. Drilling, demolition and core cutting outside that window is what drives complaints and rate compensation.
How is this different from the pre-opening template?
This one is for a hotel that is trading now. If you are commissioning a brand new property with no guests to protect, use the hotel pre-opening critical path instead, it is organised around opening readiness rather than around closures.
Is the hotel refurbishment template free?
Yes. Free Excel, PowerPoint and CSV downloads, and free online editing with no account and no watermark.