About twenty years ago, I was working on two hotels in Basel and Zurich. American investors had bought them to upgrade and sell. The studio I was working for had been hired to design the interiors and, as is usual, we prepared schemes for new guest rooms — mood boards, styles, the trends of the day. Starting from scratch, as designers tend to do.
The investors flew over for a meeting and, within five minutes, they were fuming. The main one — think a man with a lot of capital, little time, and a passing resemblance to a cast member of The Sopranos — looked at our proposals and said, in so many words: why are you wasting my money?
We had completely misunderstood the exercise. The brief was to elevate the rooms for the maximum return on every pound spent. These were business hotels, not five-star or boutique. They needed to look good, be practical and functional, and stand out against the nearest competitor. That was it.
We were sent away to start again. It was the most valuable lesson of my career.
Working with what is already there
The headboards were retained but enhanced — reclad and extended to make them grander. Services stayed in situ. The bathroom fixtures and fittings were all kept except for the vanities. The bathrooms were over-tiled to avoid the cost of strip-out and the risk of damage to existing fixtures — not something I would generally recommend, but a clear financial benefit here. Some furniture was replaced, but much was retained. The investors wanted us to work with the value already in the building and enhance the spaces.
The results were striking: lower capital expenditure, a faster programme because we were not demolishing and starting again, less waste because we were retaining rather than discarding, and a product that looked significantly better than its competitors at a fraction of the cost of a full redesign.
Their motivations were purely commercial, but the outcomes extended well beyond the balance sheet — reduced carbon, reduced waste, support for local trades in a repair economy — even if that was never their objective. There was a direct correlation between what made financial sense and what made environmental sense. It did not have a name back then, but the principle has shaped everything we have done since.
The repositioning trap
The most common mistake in mid-market hotel repositioning is treating it like a luxury project on a smaller budget. Developers buy a three-star asset intending to reposition it as a four-star, and their instinct — often reinforced by their design team — is to strip everything out and start again. New everything. A blank canvas.
This is almost always the wrong approach for mid-market. It is too expensive for the returns the asset will generate. A mid-market hotel does not command the room rates that justify wholesale replacement. The margins are tighter, the payback periods are longer, and the cost of over-specification falls directly to the bottom line.
The smarter approach is surgical: identify the elements that drive guest perception and competitive advantage, invest heavily in those, and retain or enhance everything else. This requires a design team that can walk a building and distinguish between what needs replacing, what needs refreshing, and what is already working perfectly well.
Where to invest
The areas that disproportionately influence guest perception — and therefore reviews, repeat bookings, and rate positioning — are remarkably consistent across mid-market hotels.
Beds and bedding. Nothing affects a guest’s perception of room quality more than sleep quality. A mid-market hotel with an excellent bed will outperform a competitor with better finishes but a mediocre mattress. Invest in the best mattresses the budget allows, quality bed linen, and effective blackout. This is the single highest-impact spend in any repositioning.
Bathrooms. Bathrooms are disproportionately important in how guests judge room quality. A clean, well-designed bathroom with good water pressure, considered lighting, and quality fittings signals care and investment. It does not need to be large or luxurious — it needs to work well and feel considered. In many projects this means replacing vanities and mirrors, upgrading shower fittings, improving lighting, and refreshing tiling — not gutting the bathroom entirely.
Lighting. Poor lighting is one of the most common problems in mid-market hotels, and one of the cheapest to fix relative to its impact. It is too often either harsh or non-existent. Lighting, like all good design, should enhance the guest experience in terms of both ambience and use. Consider every task: light at the desk, for make-up, reading lights at the bedside, and ambient lighting that can be dimmed. Good lighting transforms how a room feels without touching any other element.
Public spaces. The lobby, reception, bar, and restaurant are where first impressions are formed. These spaces need to feel welcoming, considered, and distinct from the competition. Again, this does not necessarily mean wholesale replacement. Often the structure and layout are sound — what is needed is better furniture, better lighting, and a material palette that feels intentional rather than inherited. It is also worth noting, particularly at reception, that the biggest gains come where design supports staff efficiency. Reducing friction for guests checking in or out is hugely influential in the overall experience.
Where to hold back
Knowing where not to spend is as important as knowing where to invest. In a mid-market repositioning, every pound spent on something that does not drive guest perception or competitive advantage is a pound that could have been better deployed elsewhere.
Structural and layout changes. If the existing room layout works — if the proportions are sensible, the bathroom is in the right place, and the circulation makes sense — do not redesign it. Moving walls, relocating bathrooms, and reconfiguring corridors are the most expensive interventions per square metre, and in a mid-market repositioning they rarely generate sufficient return.
Services that are functioning well. If the mechanical and electrical systems are in good condition, retain them. Upgrading perfectly functional HVAC, plumbing, or electrical distribution because it feels like the right thing to do on a major project is a common and expensive mistake. Replace what needs replacing; maintain what does not. The key is to design the decorative elements independently of the services, so that future updates to either can happen without triggering the other.
Furniture that has life in it. Not all existing furniture needs replacing. A well-made wardrobe or desk in good structural condition can be refinished or reconfigured at a fraction of the cost of replacement. The Basel lesson applies: work with the embedded value before assuming it needs discarding.
Trend-led finishes. The temptation to introduce the latest design trends is strong, particularly when repositioning upward. Resist it. Trend-led finishes date quickly, and in a mid-market hotel where the next refurbishment budget may be limited, you are locking the operator into a space that will feel tired within three to four years. Choose materials and finishes that respond to the building and its context rather than to what is fashionable this year. They will look appropriate for far longer.
Calibrating investment to asset class
One of the most important skills in hotel repositioning is calibrating the level of investment to the asset class. A budget hotel, a mid-market hotel, and a luxury hotel require fundamentally different approaches, and the mistakes happen when the wrong approach is applied to the wrong asset.
Budget hotels need durability, efficiency, and cleanliness above all. They must be designed to support housekeeping. The design can be simple but must be robust — materials that withstand heavy use, layouts that maximise room count, finishes that clean easily. The investment is in resilience, not refinement.
Mid-market hotels need character, comfort, and a sense that someone has cared about the details. This is where context-driven design pays dividends: a mid-market hotel that feels connected to its place, that has a genuine identity, will outperform a competitor that looks generically contemporary. The investment is in distinctiveness and guest experience, not in premium materials for their own sake.
Luxury hotels can justify the investment in exceptional materials, craftsmanship, and bespoke design. But even here the principle of working with existing value applies. The best luxury repositioning projects enhance what is already extraordinary about the building — its proportions, its history, its setting — rather than imposing a designer’s vision regardless of context.
Luxury is also a kind of performance. Think of the theatre: a seamless front of house that removes friction while the public spaces entertain and impress. The rooms then come under far greater scrutiny, and the details really matter. All the beautiful finishes in the world do not compensate for an illogically placed towel rail or an overly complex lighting control system.
The commercial logic
For developers and investors acquiring mid-market hotels for repositioning, the commercial logic is clear. The greatest return comes from targeted, strategic spend that maximises the gap between what the hotel was and what it becomes — without over-capitalising the asset.
A mid-market hotel repositioned for £15,000 per room using a targeted approach will often outperform one repositioned for £35,000 per room using wholesale replacement. Not because less was spent, but because the money was directed to the interventions that matter most to guests and revenue.
The design team’s job is not to spend the budget. It is to maximise the return on it. In mid-market repositioning, the most valuable thing a design team can do is walk the building with the developer, identify where the existing value lies, and have the confidence to say: this works, keep it — spend the money where it will make a difference.
That is what those American investors taught me twenty years ago in Switzerland. I have applied it to every repositioning project since.
