The first property in a hotel group is live. Everyone is pleased, the general manager is using it, and the sales team has moved on to the next new logo. Twelve months later the group still has one property on the product, the GM who championed it has moved to another company, and the renewal is suddenly uncertain. Nobody decided not to expand. Nobody decided to expand either.

An account plan is the document that makes someone decide. It is short, it is specific to one group, and it is reviewed every quarter. Below is a template you can copy. Replace everything in square brackets, keep it to two pages, and put one person's name on it.

Why groups need their own plan

A group is not a bigger hotel. Decisions are split between a central office and the properties, budgets live in different places, and the person who bought for one hotel often cannot buy for the others. The difference between selling to a hotel and selling to a hotel group covers how those decisions are divided. The account plan is how you keep track of that structure for one specific customer.

The template

1. The account in one paragraph

[Group name] operates [number] properties across [regions], mostly [segment: select-service, full-service, resort]. They are managed by [self / management company name] and owned by [owner type]. We are live at [number] properties since [date], on [product and plan], worth [annual figure]. The opportunity across the group is [number] properties, worth roughly [annual figure].

This paragraph is what a new account manager reads first, so write it for someone who has never heard of the group.

2. The property map

The contract end column is the most useful one in the plan. It tells you when each property can move, and it stops the team from pitching hotels that are locked in for three years.

3. Who decides, and where

At group level: [name, role] approves [budget type], [name, role] owns the technology standard, [name, role] influences through [revenue, operations, finance]. At property level: GMs approve [spend under a threshold] and recommend anything above it. Owner or asset manager sign-off is needed for [contracts over a term or value]. Our champion is [name, role]; our risk is [name, role] because [reason].

If you cannot name the person at group level who can approve a rollout, that is the first gap to close. Expansion stalls most often because the vendor only knows people at property level.

4. Proof inside the group

At [live property], the product has [result in the property's own terms, with the source of the figure]. The GM, [name], is willing to [take a call, present at the group's GM meeting, be quoted internally]. Usage is [healthy / patchy], measured by [the activation or usage metric].

Groups trust their own hotels more than anyone's case study. A result from a sister property, told by its GM at a group meeting, will move the next property faster than any external reference. The same logic runs through building a reference property programme for hotel tech.

5. The expansion sequence

Next: [two or three properties], because [contract timing, similar profile to the live property, a GM who has asked]. Proposed approach: [pilot / direct rollout / group agreement]. Commercial proposal: [per-property pricing, group discount threshold, term aligned to the existing contract]. Target date for decision: [date]. After that: [the next tranche], subject to [condition].

Propose the next two or three properties, not the whole portfolio. A group-wide proposal asks the central office to make a large decision on thin evidence. Two more properties is a small decision that builds the evidence. How to price those additions is covered in how to price a second product into an existing hotel account, and the same principles apply to second properties.

6. Risks to the account

• Champion leaves: [who else knows the product; when we last met them].

• Group standardises on another system: [whether a group-wide review is planned; who runs it].

• Ownership or operator change: [any known sale, refinancing or management change].

• Weak usage at a live property: [which property; what customer success is doing about it].

• Renewal at the live property: [date; current health].

7. Next three actions

1. [Action], owner [name], by [date]. 2. [Action], owner [name], by [date]. 3. [Action], owner [name], by [date].

Three, with names and dates. If there are more than three, the plan has turned into a wish list.

How to run the plan

• Review it every quarter with sales and customer success in the same meeting, and before any group-level call.

• Update the property map whenever a contract date or a key person changes.

• Retire the plan only when the group is fully live or clearly not a fit, and write down which one.

• Keep it in the CRM against the group record, not in someone's documents folder.

Sections to leave out

• A history of every call and email; the CRM already has it

• A SWOT analysis of the group

• Generic notes about the hospitality market

• Revenue targets with no named properties behind them

The takeaway

One live property in a group is an entry point, and it expires if nobody works it. A two-page account plan that maps the properties and their contract dates, names who decides at group and property level, captures the proof inside the group and proposes the next two or three properties, reviewed every quarter, turns that entry point into a sequence of small, winnable decisions.

If groups regularly stall at one property, the 12-point leak audit takes about twenty minutes and shows whether the leak is in expansion, retention or earlier in the funnel.

Frequently Asked Questions