Every hotel and pub operator knows this dilemma intimately. The property needs work. The rooms are tired, the bar is dated, the bathrooms are overdue. But closing means losing revenue, and losing revenue is not an option; particularly in a market where margins are already under pressure from rising energy costs, increasing payroll, and tightening regulation.
So, the building stays open, and the work happens around the guests. In principle, this sounds straightforward. In practice, it is one of the hardest things to get right in hospitality. We do it regularly, across managed pub estates and independent hotels and over the years I have come to see the distinction very clearly: the difference between a well-planned phased refurbishment and a poorly planned one is not marginal. It is the difference between a project that protects revenue and one that haemorrhages it.
What Is at Stake
Before getting into what works, it is worth understanding what is at stake, because the numbers are unforgiving.
A hotel room out of service costs money every day it cannot be sold. On a 50-room hotel averaging £120 per night at 75 per cent occupancy, the entire room stock generates roughly £4,500 per day. Close the hotel for ten weeks to refurbish and you lose £315,000 in revenue. A well-sequenced phased refurbishment avoids this entirely. Work through the building in four phases of 25 per cent, and the remaining rooms continue to trade at the same occupancy levels throughout. The revenue is protected in its entirety – the difference between a £315,000 loss and no loss at all.
Then there is the guest experience. Noise, dust, restricted access, temporary signage, skips in the car park – these are the realities of construction in a live environment. Every negative guest experience during the works risks not just a bad review but a lost repeat booking. For managed pub estates running hundreds of sites, the cumulative impact across a rolling programme of refurbishments is significant. It adds up quietly, and by the time you see it in the numbers, the damage is already done.
The operators who manage this well treat it as a discipline, not an afterthought. The ones who struggle tend to underestimate the complexity and plan too late. I have seen both, and the outcomes could not be more different.
Start with the Sequence, Not the Design
On a refurbishment while trading, the sequencing is as important as the design. In fact, I’d go as far as to say they are the same thing, because the design should be created to support a sequential refurbishment. I have seen beautiful design schemes fail commercially because no one thought carefully enough about the order of work, the rooms out of service at any given time, and the impact on the guest experience throughout the process.
The first question is always: what can you afford to take offline, and for how long? This is a revenue calculation as much as a construction one. It requires input from operations – occupancy patterns, seasonal peaks, contracted bookings, event schedules – not just from the design and construction team. The worst outcomes happen when the programme is set without operational input, and the hotel discovers halfway through that its highest-revenue weeks coincide with peak disruption. I have watched this happen, and it is painful for everyone involved.
For hotels with distinct room types, the answer is often to work in phases by floor or by zone. Complete one section, hand it back to sell and move to the next. This keeps the majority of rooms selling throughout, and it means guests in completed rooms are shielded from the work happening elsewhere.
For pubs with rooms above, the logic is different. The bar and restaurant are typically the primary revenue generators, and the rooms – while valuable – can represent a smaller proportion of turnover. The sequencing needs to protect the food and beverage operation first, even if that means the rooms take longer. Closing the bar for two weeks during a kitchen refit can be far more damaging than having six rooms offline for a month.
Design Decisions That Make Phased Work Possible
Not all designs are equally suited to phased delivery. This is a point I feel strongly about, because so often the design is developed in isolation from the reality of how the work will actually be carried out. The design itself needs to anticipate the sequencing, and there are specific decisions that make phased refurbishment dramatically easier or harder.
Services need to be independent where possible. If the electrical distribution for one floor is routed through another, you cannot refurbish floor by floor without affecting both. Designing services with clear zone separation – so that one area can be isolated and worked on without impacting adjacent spaces – is fundamental to successful phased delivery. This is particularly important in older buildings where existing services were never designed with this kind of flexibility in mind.
Connections need to be designed for speed. In a phased refurbishment, every room taken offline needs to come back online as fast as possible. The Design for Disassembly principles I have written about extensively in my book are not just an environmental benefit – they are an operational one. Mechanical fixings that allow rapid assembly and disassembly mean a room can be stripped, refurbished, and handed back faster than one where every element is glued, bonded, or permanently fixed. This is circular thinking applied to programme management, and it works.
And the public spaces must be protected at all costs. Guests will tolerate limited disruption if the reception, bar, restaurant, and lounge feel calm, clean, and unaffected. The moment construction noise or dust reaches the lobby, the entire perception shifts. Temporary partitions, dust control, managed delivery times, and careful routing of contractor access are all essential.
The Contractor Relationship
Phased refurbishment in a live environment demands a specific type of contractor. Not every builder is suited to it, and appointing the wrong one is one of the most common mistakes I see.
The contractor needs to understand that they are working in someone’s business, as well as on a building site. That means managing noise, controlling dust, respecting operating hours, and being invisible to guests wherever possible. It means flexibility – the ability to pause work if an unexpected event or booking requires it, and to accelerate when opportunity allows. It means communication – daily briefings with the hotel manager or estate team, not just the project manager.
We have worked with contractors who are superb at this and contractors who are not, and the difference is night and day. The good ones treat the hotel’s revenue as their responsibility, not just the build quality. They understand that a room handed back a day early is worth real money, and that a complaint from a guest about noise is a failure on their part, not an inevitable consequence of construction. That mindset is everything.
For managed pub estates running rolling programmes – where dozens of sites may be refurbished in a year – contractor consistency matters enormously. Working with the same team across multiple sites builds familiarity with the approach, reduces mobilisation time, and creates a feedback loop where lessons from one site improve delivery on the next. We have seen this first hand, and the improvement from site one to site ten in a rolling programme is remarkable.
Communication with Guests
How you communicate with guests during a refurbishment matters as much as the physical management of the works. I have come to believe that transparency is always the right approach. Guests are remarkably tolerant of disruption if they feel informed and respected. They are far less tolerant if they arrive expecting a normal stay and discover a building site.
Inform guests at booking if the refurbishment will be active during their stay. Offer alternatives or incentives if appropriate. Brief reception staff so they can answer questions confidently. And when the completed rooms start coming back online, use them as an upgrade opportunity. Nothing converts a sceptical guest faster than being offered a newly refurbished room at no extra charge.
Planning for the Next Time
The best time to think about how a building will be refurbished is when you are designing it in the first place. This is a principle that runs through everything we do at Sibley Grove. Every decision made at the design stage – fixing methods, service routing, material choices, zone separation – either makes future phased refurbishment easier or harder.
We design with this in mind on every project. Not because we assume the client will want to refurbish while trading, but because we know they almost certainly will at some point. Hotels do not close for refurbishment if they can avoid it. The lost revenue is too significant. So the question is not whether the next refurbishment will happen around guests, but whether the original design makes that feasible or painful.
A hotel designed for disassembly, with independent service zones, mechanical fixings, and materials that can be replaced without demolishing adjacent elements, is a hotel that can be refurbished floor by floor, zone by zone, with minimal disruption and maximum revenue protection. That is not a sustainability argument. It is an operational one – and for operators managing tight margins in a challenging market, it may be the most valuable thing a design team can deliver.
