Test the scope boundary, not the rate
The largest cost movements on a hotel interior come from work that nobody thought they had bought. Ceiling coordination, builders work, fire stopping, access panels, loose furniture installation and final clean sit in the gaps between packages.
Ask each tenderer to state in writing what sits outside their price. The clearer the exclusions, the more competent the contractor usually is.
Ask where the joinery and furniture are actually made
A contractor who manufactures can absorb a late design change in production. A contractor who buys everything in has to pass that change to a third party, and the programme moves.
Ask how the benchmark room is controlled
The benchmark is the only defence against drift across hundreds of keys. Ask when it will be ready, who signs it, what happens to changes after approval and how each subsequent room is inspected against it.
Ask for programme evidence, not a programme
Anyone can produce a bar chart. Ask for the installation cycle time achieved on a comparable property, and how the forecast was corrected when the first floor took longer than planned.
Questions worth asking in the interview
- Which parts of this scope will you manufacture yourselves?
- What is excluded from your price?
- Who resolves a clash between the ceiling and the joinery?
- When is the benchmark room available, and who approves it?
- How will you report progress against the key handover forecast?
- What will you need from us, and by when?
Related service
Hotel interior fit-out under one contract: guest rooms, public areas, restaurants and amenities engineered, manufactured, installed and handed over by one accountable team.
