At an exit, a sale, or a split with an underperforming operator, they find how much of the hotel was contracted behind the operator rather than under the asset. Supplier deals, OTA accounts, the tech stack, sometimes the staff. Leaving means rebuilding. It is how most management contracts are built.
The models owners actually sign
Hotel operating agreements are not naive. An owner can lease the hotel to an operator for fixed rent, sign a management agreement with a base fee and a profit-linked incentive that sits above a preferred return, take a brand franchise, or blend these into a hybrid. The better agreements carry real protection: performance tests, cure periods, a reserve to keep the building current, a priority return before the operator shares in the upside. Many of them run well for years.
So the issue is not that these structures are unsophisticated. It is that two things inside even a well-drafted agreement tend to work quietly against the owner.
The first is cost. When the operator or brand also earns on the buying side, through purchasing programmes, supplier rebates, mandated vendors, or a fee charged on spend, the costs in the owner's P&L are not always the real costs. And the preferred supplier is often the one that pays the operator best, not the one that serves the hotel best on price and performance. A fee that rises with spend can even reward spending more.
The second is exit. Branded agreements often commit the owner for a decade or longer, sometimes sweetened by upfront key money, and an owner usually cannot leave without cause. When performance slips, the owner is left arguing breach instead of simply changing operator, while the supplier contracts, OTA accounts, and systems that run the hotel sit in the operator's name.
Weave is built for owners who want neither problem.
The owner-aligned alternative
The fix is structural. Every supplier contracts directly with the owner's entity. OTAs, accounting, utilities, technology, all pointing at the owner's BV, holding, or family office. The operator runs them on the owner's behalf under a separate management agreement, beside the structure rather than inside the cost chain.
Three things change. Costs land in the owner's own P&L at supplier prices, so the owner reads true numbers instead of someone else's summary, and because we are tied to no vendor, a recommendation follows the hotel's interest rather than a rebate. Anything we earn from a partner or a referral sits outside the owner's costs. What the owner pays Weave is the fee, in plain sight. And when the relationship ends, by sale, exit, or a change of operator, the supplier contracts, OTA accounts, tech configuration and reporting stay with the property, so continuity stays with the asset rather than the operator.
Where our fee actually differs
Our fee works the way good incentive fees do: a base fee for operational discipline, plus a share of GOP, gross operating profit, so we earn more when the hotel earns more. The difference is what sits around it. The fee is the whole of what the owner pays us, and it is visible. Nothing is added to the owner's costs, and nothing is buried in a supplier invoice.
The phases stay separate as well. Development and pre-opening is a finite project with an itemised scope and a defined endpoint. Operations run under the management agreement. Blending the two into one open-ended engagement is how scope and cost quietly expand.
What should you ask before signing
Five questions put the structure on the table fast. Ask any operator:
- Who do the suppliers contract with, my entity or yours?
- Do you earn anything on my costs, or are you locked to suppliers you must recommend? Markups, rebates on my spend, mandated vendors, resold software.
- If we part ways, what transfers with the property, and at what cost?
- Is your incentive tied to my revenue or my GOP?
- Is pre-opening priced separately from operations?
A well-aligned operator answers all five without hesitating.
Where this model comes from
Weave was built on this structure: development, management, and tech integration under one accountability, contracted toward the owner's entity, base fee plus GOP incentive. It is how we run the properties under our management and set up every project in development.
The full commercial model is on the Weave management page. Fee structure and references from properties under management are available on request. Start the conversation.
Weave projects is a hospitality development and management company based in Amsterdam, working across the Netherlands and Europe.