๐Ÿ›Ž๏ธ Hotel Empire โ€” how to run your house

You lease the Rheinblick Guest Hotel in Leverkusen: ten rooms, six with an en-suite bathroom, four sharing a bathroom on the landing. The landlord takes no fixed rent but 20 % of your turnover โ€” he wants the house full. The deposit of 2,500 โ‚ฌ comes back when you leave.

A hotel is not a big apartment. In the apartment game you click every single enquiry. Here you set prices per room type and per night โ€” fourteen nights ahead โ€” and the bookings arrive on their own. Your work is the rule, not the individual guest. In exchange you get things the apartment does not have: a daily rhythm with a real bottleneck in the afternoon, staff on running salaries, and stars that do not come from guests but from an inspection body.

One night takes 35 real minutes. A real day therefore holds a good 41 hotel nights โ€” even when you are not watching. A game week is 4 hours 5 minutes, a game year almost nine real days. Everything is play money; nothing can be bought or paid out.

Contents
  1. First steps
  2. The booking board โ€” your control centre
  3. Prices โ€” the most important decision
  4. Rooms โ€” and what expanding really brings
  5. The hotel day and the cleaning clock
  6. Staff โ€” the cost block everything hangs on
  7. Stars โ€” and why they do not come from guests
  8. Breakfast, portal and budgets
  9. Lease โ€” or buy the house
  10. โ„๏ธ When the till drops below โˆ’500 โ‚ฌ: the business freezes
  11. When you are away
  12. The weekly closing
  13. ๐Ÿ›๏ธ The portfolio โ€” ten houses
  14. ๐Ÿฝ๏ธ Half board, restaurant and bar
  15. ๐ŸŠ Pool, sauna, spa โ€” and the honest calculation
  16. โญ Four and five stars
  17. ๐ŸŽฉ Automation โ€” when manual work becomes busywork
  18. ๐Ÿ“• Overbooking, ๐Ÿงบ laundry room, ๐Ÿ”ง damage
  19. ๐ŸŒ Three portals instead of one
  20. ๐ŸŽ“ Staff training
  21. ๐Ÿค Allotments โ€” base load against peak rates
  22. ๐Ÿ“„ Seasonal staff contracts
  23. ๐Ÿš• The forecourt โ€” who pulls up at your door
  24. ๐Ÿ…ฟ๏ธ Parking spaces
  25. ๐Ÿ›๏ธ Rooms wear out โ€” and can be renovated individually
  26. ๐Ÿ“… The option date with tour operators
  27. ๐Ÿ›ฐ๏ธ The site from above
  28. What does not exist (yet)

First steps

  1. Get money. Pay in from your current account on the start page โ€” you need about 5,000 โ‚ฌ: 2,500 โ‚ฌ deposit and the rest for the first rooms.
  2. Sign the lease. That hands you the keys; the deposit is debited.
  3. Furnish three rooms. Take the ones with an en-suite bathroom โ€” a standard double costs 690 โ‚ฌ. More than three does not pay off at the start (see below).
  4. Do nothing about the laundry. A second-hand washing machine comes with the lease and is already in the basement. It handles the laundry for up to five rooms per night and only costs you electricity and detergent: 0.70 โ‚ฌ per occupied room. More under โ€œOperationsโ€ โ†’ laundry room.
  5. Open cheaply. Leave the base rates as they are, or go slightly below. Fill the house first, raise the price second.
  6. Watch. After 35 minutes the first night is done and you see your first result.

Your house carries itself from the very first real day โ€” but slowly. Nobody knows it yet, and word of mouth only grows with guests. Measured (three rooms, no staff, one hour of play per day): real day 1 brings about 570 โ‚ฌ, real day 3 about 950 โ‚ฌ, and from real day 6 a good 1,100 โ‚ฌ per real day. After ten real days there is about 9,400 โ‚ฌ in the till.

Why it still feels slow at first: about two thirds of the 41 nights of a real day run in reduced mode because you are not there. Looking in more often earns more โ€” but nobody has to sit and watch for the house to carry itself.

Opening greedily instead (roughly 50 % above market rate) takes about twice as long for the same distance, with a half-empty house.

The booking board โ€” your control centre

The ๐Ÿ“… Bookings tab shows the next 14 nights across and the room types down. Each cell shows your price and how many rooms are already sold for that night. The colour tells you whether sales are on the usual build-up:

ColourMeaningWhat to do
greenon plannothing
yellowbehind planwatch it
redfar behind planlower the price
bluesold outraise the price โ€” you were too cheap

Why nothing sells out instantly: not all bookings for a night arrive on the same day. Fourteen days ahead only 2 % are in; the day before, 14 % arrive at once. A night twelve days out at 5 % occupancy is normal; the same figure for the day after tomorrow is an alarm. That is exactly what the colour shows.

Tap a cell to set its price. The dialog works out how many enquiries to expect at that price โ€” and how many at market rate. You can set the price for that one night or for all fourteen at once.

Base rates below decide the price a new night enters the board with. From level 7 you can add a weekend surcharge for Friday and Saturday.

Prices โ€” the most important decision

Every room type has a market rate. It rises with your stars. Charge more and demand falls; charge less and it rises. The range runs from โˆ’35 % to +120 %.

Measured, the best result sits just above the market rate (about +5 %) at roughly 57 % occupancy. It gets worse in both directions:

PriceOccupancyResult per real day
โˆ’20 %71 %2,705 โ‚ฌ
market rate62 %3,486 โ‚ฌ
+20 %51 %3,347 โ‚ฌ
+40 %40 %2,577 โ‚ฌ
+80 %22 %โˆ’192 โ‚ฌ

When an event comes (trade fair, concert, congress) demand rises โ€” the price does not rise by itself. Do nothing and you sell the same rooms at the old rate and give money away. That is exactly why the event is announced in advance.

Rooms โ€” and what expanding really brings

Four room types:

TypeMarket rate*FurnishingCleaning
๐Ÿšฟ Shared-bathroom room38 โ‚ฌ560 โ‚ฌ24 game min
๐Ÿ›๏ธ Single room41 โ‚ฌ520 โ‚ฌ20 game min
๐Ÿ›๏ธ Standard double52 โ‚ฌ690 โ‚ฌ25 game min
โœจ Comfort double67 โ‚ฌ1,180 โ‚ฌ27 game min

* without stars. With three stars the market rate is about 39 % higher (standard double then 72 โ‚ฌ).

โš ๏ธ The most important non-obvious truth of this game: your demand grows with the house โ€” but more slowly than the number of rooms. Twice as many rooms bring roughly one and a half times the demand: a larger house is available more often on the portals, is found more easily and can take groups at all โ€” but it does not fill up by itself.

What follows from that: every new room first pushes your occupancy down and costs fixed costs from the very first night. In the end a fully built house still earns more than a half-built one โ€” measured in the Market Square City Hotel +64 โ‚ฌ instead of +50 โ‚ฌ per night, in the Rheinpark Conference Hotel +101 โ‚ฌ instead of +50 โ‚ฌ. A new room pays for itself fastest when you had to decline bookings before; the booking board and the Rooms tab tell you exactly that.

Quality counts twice. Stars, a good guest rating, modernised rooms, a well-kept building and your extensions bring more guests and higher rates at the same time. The same twenty-room house earns roughly three times as much well-kept and with three stars as it does without stars.

Installing a bathroom (2,400 โ‚ฌ per room): the first big savings target. Two stars require a bathroom in every room offered for sale โ€” without renovation you never get past one star. Measured, renovating all four shared-bathroom rooms โ€” including the two stars they make possible โ€” brings about +2,100 โ‚ฌ per real day.

Blocking a room: a blocked room only costs 0.20 โ‚ฌ instead of 4.40 to 8.53 โ‚ฌ in fixed costs per night (depending on the category โ€” a shared-bathroom room has less to heat and maintain than a suite) โ€” but earns nothing either.

The hotel day and the cleaning clock

A hotel day has a rhythm, and it drives the decision you make most often:

Time (game time)What happens
until 11:00check-out wave
11:00โ€“15:00cleaning window โ€” everything must be done here
from 15:00check-in wave
6:30โ€“10:00breakfast

The cleaning clock on the front-desk page shows as a ring when all rooms are ready. If the blue arc runs past the 15:00 mark it turns red:

DelayConsequence
up to 30 game minnothing โ€” guests arrive spread out
30โ€“120 game minguests wait, staff sub-score โˆ’0.8
over 120 game minsub-score โˆ’2.0 and complaints

The arithmetic behind it is simple: a departing room needs 20โ€“27 game minutes of full cleaning, a staying room 12 minutes of refreshing. One staff hour delivers 51 usable game minutes (15 % goes on walking about). And tomorrow's departures are already known today โ€” so you can plan. Failing to plan is punished, but never a surprise.

Staff โ€” the cost block everything hangs on

You set two sliders; the house splits the hours between reception, kitchen and cleaning by itself.

Permanent staffCasual staff
Cost per hour12.60 โ‚ฌ17.00 โ‚ฌ
Runs when emptyyes โ€” that is the pointno
Hiring feeone month's salarynone
Noticeone game week (both ways)none

Your own work is free. You live in the house and deliver 2 hours of cleaning per night plus eleven of the fourteen required reception hours. That is exactly why a guesthouse gets by with so few staff โ€” and why your staff ratio sits at roughly 12โ€“20 % instead of the 30โ€“35 % usual in real hotels. That is no management achievement.

The suggested requirement sits above the sliders free of charge and tells you in plain words how many hours would be needed. It takes the arithmetic off you, not the decision.

Permanent staff only pays off in large houses โ€” and even there only when the house needs the hours every night (star-rated reception, breakfast kitchen, many occupied rooms): then, at 12.60 โ‚ฌ per hour, they are cheaper than casual staff. A small house cannot carry them โ€” 8 permanent hours cost 100.80 โ‚ฌ per night, even when the house is empty, and that is more than a guesthouse with three to ten rooms earns in a night. The staff tab tells you so as well while your house is small.

The contract cleaners WeiรŸwerk Rheinland (from level 5) clean at short notice for 34 โ‚ฌ per room. They are deliberately expensive โ€” one of your own hours does the same for about 6 โ‚ฌ. They are meant for the day you miscalculated, not for permanent use.

The emergency brake kicks in when the till runs low: first marketing and maintenance are halved, then casual staff is cancelled, and in the worst case permanent hours are terminated. As soon as the till carries again, marketing and maintenance resume with the budget you set โ€” you do not have to move the sliders back. The damage is always repairable.

Stars โ€” and why they do not come from guests

This is the biggest difference to the apartment game. There are two completely separate numbers:

Almost all criteria are staff hours or investments:

LevelRequiresWillingness to payVisibility
โ˜…three furnished rooms, daily cleaning without backlogร—0.84ร—0.98
โ˜…โ˜…bathroom in every room, breakfast, drinks in-houseร—0.94ร—1.04
โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…3 paid reception hours, TV and internet, buffet, card payment, seatingร—1.06ร—1.14

Is the third star worth it? Measured: yes, but narrowly. On a fully built house it brings about +890 โ‚ฌ per real day and pays back the 6,650 โ‚ฌ of fees and improvements after roughly seven real days. That is exactly the kind of decision you actually have to work out.

Four and five stars do not exist here. They require a restaurant, lobby, lift and spa โ€” improvements this version does not have yet. They are deliberately kept out of the catalogue rather than listed as empty promises.

Re-inspection: the classification is valid for five game years. Drop a criterion in the meantime (cut those reception hours!) and you lose the star at the re-inspection โ€” not immediately.

Breakfast, portal and budgets

Breakfast is the second line of business:

OfferCost of goodsPriceTake-upKitchen
simple2.60 โ‚ฌ12 โ‚ฌ55 %2 hr per 20 guests
buffet3.20 โ‚ฌ15 โ‚ฌ70 %3 hr per 20 guests

If the kitchen hours are short, take-up falls and so does the breakfast sub-score. The buffet needs the breakfast kitchen (4,500 โ‚ฌ) and is a three-star criterion.

Zimmerfinder is the big commission portal: 17 % on every booking from there. You can switch it off โ€” do not. Measured, occupancy then falls from 57 % to 21 % and the house goes into the red. With ten rooms direct sales alone cannot carry it; that channel grows with awareness and score and reaches around 35 % of bookings when fully built.

Maintenance (4 % of turnover recommended) keeps the building in shape โ€” at any house size, from the three-room start to a fully built house. Below 72 % condition damage starts blocking rooms and costs repairs; below 50 % the sub-scores suffer as well. A well-kept house above 85 % also brings more guests. Marketing (from level 3, 2 % recommended) raises awareness and with it demand.

๐Ÿฉน When you are making a loss, a card called โ€œWhere it is pinching right nowโ€ appears at the front desk. It shows only while the balance of the last nights is negative, names the biggest items with their real figures โ€” empty rooms, rate above market rate, wages, the laundry company, running costs of extensions, building condition, minimum lease โ€” and takes you straight to where you can change them with one button. It never changes anything by itself; you decide.

Lease โ€” or buy the house

The landlord takes 20 % of your total turnover โ€” rooms and breakfast alike. No minimum rent: an empty house pays nothing. In exchange the rent grows with every success. Measured:

Build-outTurnover per nightRent per nightRent per real day
3 rooms, no stars146 โ‚ฌ29 โ‚ฌ1,197 โ‚ฌ
6 rooms, โ˜…โ˜…410 โ‚ฌ82 โ‚ฌ3,374 โ‚ฌ
10 rooms, โ˜…โ˜…503 โ‚ฌ101 โ‚ฌ4,142 โ‚ฌ
10 rooms, โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…622 โ‚ฌ124 โ‚ฌ5,121 โ‚ฌ

From level 8 the landlord grants you a right of first refusal: 22,000 โ‚ฌ for the house and the land. Your deposit of 2,500 โ‚ฌ is refunded in the process, so you put down 19,500 โ‚ฌ. From the next night the turnover rent is gone for good.

What arrives instead: as the owner you carry property tax and building insurance โ€” 7.50 โ‚ฌ per night (2,737.50 โ‚ฌ per game year). Those fall due even when no room is occupied; the rent would have been zero in that case. For a house that actually runs it is still a very good deal.

When it pays for itself (19,500 โ‚ฌ divided by the rent saved minus those 7.50 โ‚ฌ):

Build-outSaved per nightpaid off after
3 rooms, no stars21.60 โ‚ฌ527 real hours (22 days)
6 rooms, โ˜…โ˜…74.51 โ‚ฌ153 real hours (6.4 days)
10 rooms, โ˜…โ˜…93.17 โ‚ฌ122 real hours (5.1 days)
10 rooms, โ˜…โ˜…โ˜…116.96 โ‚ฌ97 real hours (4.0 days)

That sets the order: build first, buy second. Buy with three rooms and you wait almost a month for your money; buy with ten rooms and it is back within five days. The game does the sum for your own case in the ๐Ÿณ Operations tab โ€” not from this table, but from the rent your house really paid over the last seven nights.

โš ๏ธ Do not put down your last euro. If your till drops below three nights of fixed costs after the purchase, the emergency brake halves maintenance and marketing. The purchase dialogue warns you and names the amount you had better have together.

What an owner may do on top: touch the fabric of the building. A full refurbishment lifts the condition to 100 % in one go, at 250 โ‚ฌ per percentage point. Through the running maintenance budget the same jump costs 45 โ‚ฌ per point and per furnished room and takes weeks โ€” with ten furnished rooms that is 450 โ‚ฌ, so the refurbishment is clearly cheaper; with three rooms it is 135 โ‚ฌ, and then the budget is the better deal. A leased house is off limits structurally โ€” which is why the button only appears after the purchase.

And: the house you bought is a fixed asset of your business. Delete the save slot and it counts at its current value โ€” a building loses only 5 % in the first and 3 % in each further game year and never falls below 60 % of the purchase price. A run-down house is worth less, though: the condition feeds into the valuation.

โ„๏ธ When the till drops below โˆ’500 โ‚ฌ: the business freezes

Your business till may go into the red โ€” but not without limit. If it drops below โˆ’500 โ‚ฌ, the hotel halts and stands still.

It starts again as soon as you have topped it up from your current account so the till is back at 0 โ‚ฌ. Neither the 24-hour window nor any waiting time applies to that โ€” that is exactly what this exception is for.

Standing still really means standing still, in both directions:

That is the whole point of the rule: you should be able to buy your way out once and then carry on normally โ€” not drop back below โˆ’500 โ‚ฌ in the same moment because the standstill gets billed retrospectively.

โš ๏ธ Your current account is not affected: rent, cost of living and loan instalments keep running. It is the business that halts, not your account.

When you are away

The house keeps running โ€” night by night, with exactly the same arithmetic as when you watch. The clock you see ticking is display only; an open tab earns not one cent more.

After 8 real hours without you the house switches to reduced mode: prices are no longer maintained and occupancy falls to 85 % of what would have been possible. When you come back you get a report with cause and suggestion โ€” not just figures.

โš ๏ธ The iron rule: being away costs opportunities, never substance. Nothing expires, no room breaks because you were gone for two days. Stay away for two weeks and you find a smaller but healthy hotel โ€” never a ruin.

โธ๏ธ Once your pause time has run out without you opening the hotel, the game is put on hold. The game clock simply stands still: no nights, no guests, no income โ€” and in the same breath no costs either. Wages, lease, fixed costs and wear pause just the same, and deadlines such as allotments, options, training or the classification do not run on. As soon as you open the hotel again, everything continues exactly where it left off.

How long that pause time is, you decide yourself. On the start page, below the game tiles, you will find the collapsible box โ€œโธ๏ธ Pause setting per gameโ€ and set it there for each business separately. Without a choice of your own the default of 6 hours applies. For the hotel you can pick 6, 12, 18 or 24 hours โ€” more would be too much here, because a night lasts only 35 real minutes: a real day is about 41 nights, so the default of 6 hours is a good 10 nights and the full step of 24 hours around 41 nights. Your choice takes effect the next time you open the game.

Every click restarts the clock. An open tab alone is not enough: if you click nothing, you are not playing โ€” the house then stands still just as if the tab were closed. When that happens the game tells you with a note at the bottom of the screen, and a single click resumes everything at once. No reloading needed.

This is not a penalty, it is a pause. You lose nothing you already have โ€” you simply do not gain during that time. Come back after three weeks and you find your business exactly as you left it when it stopped, and the return report tells you plainly how long the house ran and from when it stood still.

If the break was very long (over 3,000 nights, roughly 73 real days), the remainder is carried forward as a generous lump sum so the recalculation does not take forever.

The weekly closing

Every 7 nights (4 hr 05 real time) the house takes stock and shows occupancy, average rate, revenue per available room, staff ratio and result. Plus the market comparison: the regional average sits at about 41.80 โ‚ฌ revenue per available room and moves with weekday and season. One line tells you whether your pricing strategy works.

Important: revenues and costs are booked per night, not in one lump at the weekend. The weekly closing is a report, not a payday โ€” there are no nasty surprises.

๐Ÿ›๏ธ The portfolio โ€” ten houses

From level 5 the second house becomes available, then another one every three to four levels โ€” up to the Cala Piedra Resort on Mallorca with 300 rooms. You switch between houses using the bar at the top; the ๐Ÿ›๏ธ Houses tab shows them all side by side.

โš ๏ธ A portfolio lives on the MIX, not on the count. A mountain hotel carries January, a seaside hotel carries July. Collect only holiday houses and you earn brilliantly for four months and pay fixed costs for eight. The year band in the portfolio shows you with twelve bars when your year carries and where it collapses โ€” red means weak.

Every house has its own character: a conference hotel is full Monday to Thursday and empty at the weekend, an airport hotel has short stays and must be staffed around the clock, a budget house lives on dormitory rooms. What makes sense in which house is calculated for you on every tile.

From house 2 there is a minimum rent. It falls due even when the house is empty โ€” you always pay the higher of the two amounts (turnover rent or minimum rent), never both. Empty rooms now really hurt, and that is exactly what separates the professional from the beginner.

๐Ÿฝ๏ธ Half board, restaurant and bar

โš ๏ธ The kitchen is a door, not a money printer. A hotel restaurant earns 5 to 15 % of turnover in real life, and it is the same here. Build it as a source of income and you will be disappointed โ€” build it as a prerequisite and you get further: without a restaurant there are no four and no five stars.

Half board (from level 10) needs the full kitchen and a breakfast buffet โ€” a kitchen that cooks at night also covers the morning. Around 42 % of guests take it, and they stay longer on average.

ร€-la-carte restaurant (from level 13) additionally brings guests in off the street โ€” regardless of whether your house is full. How many depends on the house: a boutique hotel in Duesseldorf attracts passing trade, a guesthouse in Leverkusen does not.

The hotel bar has the best margin in the house โ€” evening revenue from guests who are here anyway.

So where does the kitchen actually earn? Hardly at the plate: after goods, staff, energy, lease, administration and maintenance, roughly nothing is left per cover. The money is made through the house โ€” the restaurantโ€™s passing trade, the better catering score, the higher willingness to pay, and the stars that are out of reach without a kitchen. Measured in the Waldbad spa hotel (75 rooms), a restaurant nets +125.47 โ‚ฌ per night, in the 300-room resort +322.10 โ‚ฌ. That is exactly how a hotel restaurant pays off in real life, too.

๐Ÿšœ Where the goods come from: today your hotel buys from the wholesaler and pays 25 % above the goods value. Below the catering card you can see what your house needs per night โ€” rolls, eggs, milk, potatoes, meat. Later the Rheinhof farm is meant to supply that; the interface for it is already built.

๐ŸŠ Pool, sauna, spa โ€” and the honest calculation

There are now twenty expansions: lobby, lift, air conditioning, full kitchen, restaurant, bar, conference room, fitness room, sauna, swimming pool, spa area, childcare, entertainment, own transfer service and an in-house laundry.

โš ๏ธ Not every expansion belongs in every house. A pool in a city hotel is the surest way into bankruptcy; in a holiday hotel it is the thing that makes the difference. The game does not hide such expansions โ€” it calculates on the tile what they bring in THIS house and what they cost. If it says "does not pay off here", that is true.

Every expansion works through four channels: more demand, higher willingness to pay, a better score โ€” and it makes your house more upscale, which draws guests in its own right. The effect saturates โ€” the twelfth expansion brings less than the second. And almost every one has running costs that apply even when the house is empty.

In the right house every expansion carries itself. Measured in the Waldbad spa hotel (75 rooms) a sauna nets +94.61 โ‚ฌ per night, a swimming pool +42.60 โ‚ฌ, a spa area +129.00 โ‚ฌ โ€” each after its running costs. The bigger and better the house, the more it becomes.

โ›” An expansion cannot be given back โ€” and in the wrong house it stays a loss. The same three in the ten-room city hotel: sauna โˆ’10.27 โ‚ฌ, swimming pool โˆ’29.80 โ‚ฌ, spa area โˆ’42.14 โ‚ฌ per night, permanently. That is why the game asks back when you buy an expansion that does not pay off in this house โ€” you can still buy it, but no longer by accident. If it does pay off, there is no question and one click is enough.

โญ Four and five stars

The catalogue now goes up to five stars. Four stars require at least 20 rooms on sale, a lobby, a restaurant or half board, a lift (from three floors up), a leisure facility, 16 hours of reception and at least 70 % building condition. Five stars additionally require a spa, a bar, air conditioning, 40 rooms, 30 % upscale rooms, reception around the clock, 85 % condition and a guest score of at least 8.0.

โš ๏ธ Not every house can reach every level. The Rheinblick is a ten-room guest hotel and reaches three stars at most โ€” no expansion changes that. The catalogue still shows the higher levels, greyed out and with a reason: a manual that stays silent looks like a bug.

Higher star ratings cost permanently: eight or sixteen paid reception hours plus service staff per occupied room. In return they bring markedly more willingness to pay and visibility.

๐ŸŽฉ Automation โ€” when manual work becomes busywork

With one house you steer yourself. With five houses it would be five times the rates per category and night, five times the roster, five times the budget โ€” unplayable on a phone. So there are three helpers, each switchable per house:

๐Ÿ’ถ They are paid on success. Each helper takes a share of your houseโ€™s night result: 4 % for the rate automation, 6 % for the staff manager, 15 % for general management (which includes the other two). If a house earns nothing on a night, the automation costs nothing on that night โ€” it can never push you into the red. The exact percentages are shown on the card in the game as well.

โš ๏ธ Automation is never better than good manual work. It compares a nightโ€™s pick-up with what is normal for your house and reacts only after an event, never before. An attentive player gets more out of it. You are buying clicks, not an advantage.

๐Ÿง‘โ€๐Ÿณ And without staff? Then you do the essentials yourself โ€” no automation, no cost: your maintenance never drops below the recommendation, and you fix small damage yourself (up to 1,000 โ‚ฌ, taking half as long again, because you are also at the front desk). Big repairs, and anything that improves rather than merely restores, stay your decision โ€” or your managerโ€™s.

๐Ÿ“• Overbooking, ๐Ÿงบ laundry room, ๐Ÿ”ง damage

Overbooking (from level 18) sells more rooms than you have โ€” because experience says 4 to 8 % of guests never turn up. When it works out it is pure profit. When it does not, you have to relocate: 150 % of the room rate at the hotel next door, a taxi on top and a very bad review.

โš ๏ธ The slider is at zero, and no-shows only happen once you turn it up. If you never touch it, you will not notice this mechanic at all. And with ten rooms, 6 % overbooking is exactly 0.6 rooms โ€” it only really pays off from about forty rooms upwards, and the card tells you so.

๐Ÿงบ The laundry room. Every occupied room produces one night of laundry. You have two ways, and you decide for each house separately:

If more rooms are occupied than your machines can handle, the rest goes to the company. Nothing breaks, no room is blocked and your score does not suffer โ€” it just costs more. So you can grow calmly and buy the next machine when you need it.

What pays off: one machine saves 1.90 โ‚ฌ per room and night compared with the company. At five occupied rooms it has paid for itself after about 150 nights, at three after about 250. If you build an in-house laundry (expansion from level 23) you wash for the whole house at cost and never need another machine.

Individual damage (heating, water, lift, kitchen, roof, Wi-Fi, pool water) only occurs below 72 % building condition, and there is a warning above that. A new house starts at 78 % โ€” so you are safe as long as you do not leave the maintenance budget at zero. That is exactly what it is for.

And the emergency brake does not touch it. If money gets tight, the game stops your marketing and cancels casual staff โ€” maintenance keeps running. It is the substance of your house; saving on it exactly when things are tight would only make everything worse.

๐ŸŒ Three portals instead of one

Besides Roomfinder (17 % commission, carries the base load) there are now NestFree (21 %, leisure guests, strong Friday to Sunday) and Kontor (13 %, business travellers, strong Monday to Thursday). Each is switchable per house.

โš ๏ธ Three portals do not bring three markets. The same guests see the same listing several times. The second portal only contributes about half of its raw value, the third a fifth โ€” together around 28 % more reach, paid for with their commission. Which portal suits your house is decided by the day of the week: a conference hotel needs Kontor, a holiday hotel needs NestFree.

๐ŸŽ“ Staff training

From level 25 you can train your staff โ€” one slider per house, no personnel files. Three levels, each takes five nights and works permanently afterwards: trained staff clean more rooms in the same hour (up to 13 minutes more per hour) and earn better reviews.

It is the only way to serve more rooms without more staff.

๐Ÿค Allotments โ€” base load against peak rates

From three stars and twelve rooms on sale, allotment offers start arriving by themselves. A company (or, in a holiday hotel, a tour operator) books fixed rooms at a fixed rate: business houses Monday to Thursday, holiday houses Friday to Sunday.

The trade-off: you get secure occupancy with no portal commission and no vacancy risk โ€” in return those rooms are committed. Even in trade-fair week, when you could have sold them for twice as much.

โš ๏ธ This calculation does not always work out. Measured: in a conference hotel that is full Monday to Thursday anyway, an allotment costs 3 to 10 % of the result. In an airport hotel, which fills up less easily, it brings 12 to 28 %. Which applies to your house depends on your occupancy โ€” the card gives you the amount per contract night so you can compare.

There is always at most one contract and at most one offer. An offer stands for a few nights and then expires by itself โ€” declining one costs you nothing. You cannot get out early.

๐Ÿ“„ Seasonal staff contracts

For predictable peaks: you book hours for a fixed period (30, 60 or 90 nights) at 14.20 โ‚ฌ per hour instead of the 17.00 โ‚ฌ of casual staff. A mountain hotel in winter or a seaside hotel in summer knows months ahead when it will be full.

โš ๏ธ The hours keep running until the contract ends โ€” even when the house is empty. Casual hours can be set to zero at any time, a seasonal contract cannot. Measured, a contract running through the off-season of a mountain hotel costs around 7,800 โ‚ฌ per real day.

The break-even is printed on the card: the contract pays off if you really need the hours on at least 84 % of the contract nights (14.20 รท 17.00). Below that you are paying for hours nobody works.

โš ๏ธ It is only cheaper than casual staff, never than a permanent member of staff (12.60 โ‚ฌ). If you would have permanent hours anyway, keep them โ€” measured, the mix-up costs 7 to 14 % of the result.

๐Ÿš• The forecourt โ€” who pulls up at your door

In front of the house you can see how your guests arrive: taxis, family cars with roof boxes, shuttle buses, coaches. Who pulls up depends on the type of house โ€” and that explains, without a single number, why which expansion pays off where:

The density follows the time of day: departures with suitcases in the morning, the arrival wave in the afternoon, a single taxi at night.

โญ And this is where the arrival time becomes visible: if your cleaning window has been missed, you see the guests waiting outside the door instead of walking in. That is the same time pressure the number in the staff tab already describes โ€” now you can watch it.

โš ๏ธ This is presentation, not mechanics. There is nothing to click, nothing to decide and no extra penalty. The waiting guest is the face of the delay consequence that already exists โ€” not a second punishment on top.

A coach pulling up, by the way, is your running tour-operator allotment. No new rule โ€” the mechanic simply gets a face.

๐Ÿ…ฟ๏ธ Parking spaces

How many of your guests arrive in their own car depends on the type of house โ€” from 20 % at the airport hotel (the shuttle runs there) to 80 % at the mountain hotel. It is the same figure that decides who pulls up at your door.

โš ๏ธ Too few spaces cost you NOTHING. Enough spaces raise the "location and arrival" sub-score by up to 0.8 points; too few do not lower it. There is only a bonus here that you either get or do not.

Every house comes with some spaces. As you grow they get tight โ€” then the expansion is worth a thought. What it costs depends on the location, and that is the real appeal:

Measured, at three stars and fully built: at the mountain hotel the parking pays for itself after 26 real hours, at the coast after 21, at the spa hotel after 35 โ€” a gravel lot, and almost everyone comes by car. Downtown it takes an underground garage and hardly anyone drives themselves: there it takes 460 to 540 real hours, and at the airport hotel 520. The tile works it out for your house.

๐Ÿ›๏ธ Rooms wear out โ€” and can be renovated individually

Two different conditions, and that matters: the building condition is the fabric โ€” roof, heating, pipes. It decides about damage and about the full refurbishment. The room condition is the fit-out โ€” furniture, bathroom, paintwork. It decides the score. The maintenance budget looks after both.

Furnished rooms wear out in proportion to occupancy โ€” an empty house wears nothing out. Below 70 % it pulls on the score, and from 78 % you get an early warning.

โš ๏ธ It will not surprise you. Measured: at the recommended maintenance level (4 %) the condition holds by itself and never falls below the warning line. At the default (2 %) the warning comes after 27 real days and the threshold after 36. Even with the budget at zero you have 15 real days until the warning.

Renovation works in blocks โ€” with up to 300 rooms anything else would be a chore. Next to each category in the room list you see how many are worn, and one button puts them all right at once. Individually where the list is individual anyway (houses up to 24 rooms).

โœจ And there is a second way: modernising. It costs more but does not just make the room as good as new โ€” it makes it better: a permanent +0.35 on the sub-score and about 3 % more willingness to pay. Measured, a fully modernised house earns 7.8 % more. That is the difference between holding off decay and getting better.

๐Ÿ“… The option date with tour operators

A corporate allotment is firm: the company books for its own travellers and hands nothing back. A tour operator, by contrast, holds rooms on spec โ€” and hands back whatever it cannot sell.

That is why every tour-operator allotment has an option date: until then the operator may return part of the rooms. How much at most (10 to 35 %) and when is stated in the offer, so you can price it in before you sign.

The trade-off: returned rooms are not lost, they go back on free sale. But at short notice, at a point when the advance sales for those nights are nearly done โ€” and short notice is harder to sell. That is exactly what the operator pays a better rate for than a company would.

โš ๏ธ Measured: a full return costs about 5 % of the result in a mountain hotel and about 9 % in a well-built seaside hotel. It hits houses with weak demand hardest โ€” there you cannot place the rooms again at short notice. Anyone who struggles to fill their house should think twice about a tour-operator allotment.

๐Ÿ›ฐ๏ธ The site from above

At reception you can switch between two viewpoints. The house section shows the operation: who is staying, who is leaving, where cleaning is happening. The site view shows the property from above โ€” and with it everything your money has bought.

Every expansion you built appears: restaurant, conference room, sauna, spa, fitness room and childcare as annexes, plus the swimming pool with loungers, the laundry as an outbuilding and the parking spaces. What you have not built is not there โ€” the catalogue becomes a picture.

The grounds follow the type of house: the city hotel sits tight between neighbouring buildings on paving, the mountain hotel on a slope with contour lines and conifers, the seaside hotel by the water with a beach and palms, the resort spread out with gardens.

And both views show the same world: the vehicles that pull up at the door in the section drive along the access road here โ€” same timing, same mix, just from above. On the car park you can see whether it is full; that is where the parking spaces get their visible purpose.

โš ๏ธ This too is presentation, not mechanics. There is nothing to click and nothing to decide.

What does not exist (yet)

Honesty belongs here. Not built is winter closure as its own mechanic โ€” blocking rooms and scaling down staff already covers the case, and a separate switch would be a second truth alongside it. Marco decided this on 02.08.2026.

Also open is the supply chain: today the hotel buys its goods from the wholesaler. The interface to the Rheinhof farm is built and already shows you the demand โ€” it is just not delivered yet.

None of it is shown here as an empty promise โ€” what you see in the game actually works.