Launching a New Hospitality Brand: What to Prepare Before Opening
Start about twelve months before opening, and start with the brand, because signage, interiors, the website, photography and booking all depend on it. Most of what goes wrong at opening is not design. It is timing.
- For
- Before opening, Opening
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- Aeterna Works
Most new hotels, villas and retreats open with the same problems. The website goes live a week late. The first photos are taken in rooms that are not finished. The sign out front was designed by whoever made it. The name turns out to belong to a café two streets away on Google Maps.
None of these are design failures. They are timing failures. Each one needed a decision months earlier than it felt urgent, and by the time it felt urgent there was no good option left.
This is the timeline we would give anyone opening a hospitality business, and the reasoning behind it.
Why the brand comes first
It is tempting to treat branding as the logo and to leave it until the building is nearly done. We wrote about when branding should start separately. The problem is how much depends on it.
The name and the identity decide what goes on the facade, the gate and the wayfinding. They shape the colours and details the interior designer chooses, the room numbers, the menus, the amenities, the uniforms and the welcome card on the pillow. They decide how the website looks and sounds, what the photographer is asked to capture and what your Instagram grid feels like before anyone has stayed.
If the brand arrives last, every one of those things gets designed without it, by different people, and the result looks like it. If the brand arrives first, they all start from the same idea of the place.
When the brand comes first, everyone works from the same brief.
The twelve month timeline
Every project is different, and a small villa moves faster than a forty room hotel. But the order rarely changes, and the lead times are what catch people out.
Twelve months to opening
- 12 to 9 months out
Positioning and name
Decide who the place is for, what a stay is like and roughly what it costs. Then name it. Before you commit to a name, check the domain, the Instagram handle, the trademark register and Google Maps in your area.
Once the name is settled, build the identity: logo, typefaces, colours and the way the place speaks.
- 9 to 6 months out
The brand goes into the building
Brief the architect and interior designer with the brand, not after it. Design everything that has to be fabricated: signage, wayfinding, room numbers, printed pieces, uniforms. Fabrication and shipping take longer than anyone expects.
If you want to market before the building is finished, this is when 3D renders of the key spaces are made.
- 6 to 4 months out
Website and booking setup
Plan the website around the questions guests ask, and choose how bookings will work: a booking engine, a channel manager, WhatsApp, or a mix. Set up accounts on the booking platforms you will use, a proper email address on your own domain, and payments.
Put a simple holding page live with the name, a few images and a way to get in touch.
- 4 to 2 months out
Visibility before opening
Start Instagram with renders, construction progress and the story of the place. Create the Google Business Profile: Google lets you add a future opening date up to 90 days before you open. Write the website copy, and book the photographer now for a date after the rooms are dressed.
- The last 2 months
Photography and launch
Shoot only when rooms are finished, styled and lit. Then launch the full website with real photographs, and put the same images on your booking platform listings so everything matches.
- The first 3 months open
Fill the gaps
Photograph what you could not before: food in service, the garden grown in, different light. Read the questions guests ask by message and answer them on the website.
What to prioritise on a smaller budget
Not every opening has the budget to do everything well. If you have to choose, spend on the things guests see before they book and the things that are expensive to change later.
- The name and a solid core identity. Changing these after opening means changing everything else too.
- Signage. It is physical, it is permanent, and every guest photographs the entrance.
- A website that takes direct bookings. Even a small one. Without it, every booking pays commission to a platform.
- One proper photoshoot. Photographs do more selling than any other asset you own.
What can wait: elaborate stationery, a launch event, paid advertising before you have good photographs, and a large social media plan before there is anything to show.
The most common opening mistakes
Photographing before the rooms are finished. Unfinished photographs end up on the booking platforms, and they stay there for years because replacing them never feels urgent.
Choosing a name without checking it. If the Instagram handle is taken, or a similar business already ranks for it on Google, you will be fighting for your own name.
Treating the website as an afterthought. A late website means opening on booking platforms alone. Guests who would have booked direct cannot find a way to.
Letting the fabricator design the sign. The fabricator’s job is to build it well. The design should come from the brand.
Brand designer and interior designer never meeting. When the two work from one shared brief, the building and the brand feel like the same place. When each writes their own, guests notice.
Who should hold the timeline
One person should own this list. Usually that is the owner or the general manager. It works best when that person also has someone who can carry the brand, the visuals and the digital side together, so decisions in one place show up in the others.
That is the part of an opening a studio like ours is built for. Our work spans Screen, Lens and Space: the website and booking, the photography and 3D visuals, and the physical side, from signage and wayfinding to spaces built around the brand.
Before opening checklist
- Positioning written down in a paragraph: who it is for and what a stay is like
- Name checked against domain, Instagram, trademark register and Google Maps
- Identity finished: logo, type, colours, tone of voice
- Interior designer and architect briefed with the brand
- Signage and printed pieces designed and ordered with time to spare
- Booking setup chosen: engine, channel manager, WhatsApp, or a mix
- Holding page live with a way to get in touch
- Google Business Profile created with the opening date
- Photographer booked for after the rooms are dressed
- Full website live with real photographs before the first guest arrives
From the studio
If you are planning an opening and want a second pair of eyes on your timeline, write to us. We will tell you where we think you are and what we would do next.
