An RFP doesn’t become free because someone on salary answers it. It consumes time, attention and sometimes direct expense before the hotel knows whether there is a deal worth pursuing.
The useful question isn’t whether your team should answer inquiries. Of course it should. The question is what a relevant response requires, and how much of that work you keep recreating.
Anyone can celebrate a fat proposal count. I want to know what it cost to produce a useful answer, and whether the work actually moved a qualified buyer forward. A salaried colleague isn’t a free, unlimited supply of hours.
Count the work around the response
Start with qualification. Add space selection, rate and availability review, content gathering, presentation assembly and manager approval. Then include clarifications needed to make the initial recommendation usable.
Keep those tasks separate from negotiating a qualified deal. Otherwise a complicated, valuable opportunity can look inefficient simply because it received the attention it deserved.
Our hotel group RFP preparation guide covers the reusable workflow. This exercise asks what that workflow costs at your property.
Use an agreed measurement window and sample different inquiry types. A small executive meeting and a convention with twenty breakouts should not share one undifferentiated average.
The arithmetic can stay boring
Here is an illustrative example, not hotel or FOH performance data. A salesperson spends 45 active minutes on an initial response. A coordinator spends 20 minutes gathering and checking assets. A manager spends 10 minutes reviewing it.
At assumed loaded hourly costs of $50, $30 and $70 respectively, the assigned labor cost is $37.50 + $10 + $11.67, or $59.17. Add any genuinely incremental production expense separately.
These assumptions are deliberately visible. The BLS compensation methodology is useful background on compensation components; an industry average cannot supply your hotel’s actual role costs.
If preparation drops by fifteen salaried minutes, the hotel has released capacity. It hasn’t necessarily removed an expense from payroll. Finance should be able to see both statements without someone trying to squeeze them into the same ROI headline.
Cheap responses can be expensive later
A rushed response that misses the program may generate four clarification rounds. A careful initial recommendation might take longer and reduce the total work.
Track response quality alongside time: requirements answered, incorrect materials, avoidable follow-up and whether the inquiry was a credible fit. Otherwise the dashboard rewards speed and pushes the cleanup onto someone else.
Also separate inquiries declined after a sensible qualification check from qualified opportunities that lose. A quick, honest answer to a mismatch can be good service and good resource management.
What to change after measuring
If retrieval dominates, fix the content library. If approvals dominate, examine decision authority and response expectations. If unqualified volume dominates, improve the intake questions. If tailoring dominates, ask whether the work is useful judgment or repeated formatting.
Don’t solve every bottleneck with another platform. A clearer responsibility can be cheaper and more effective than a new subscription.
Use HSMAI’s sourcing analysis as qualitative context; its early-2020 interview base is not a benchmark for your current response cost.
The number worth carrying into a leadership meeting is the cost of a usable response, with its assumptions attached. That gives you something you can improve without making the salesperson the problem.
Find more questions worth taking into that meeting in Hospitality Field Notes.