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, 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. Where those earnings sit is mapped in hotel management fees, explained by an operator.
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.
The fee itself is the ordinary kind, a base fee plus a share of gross operating profit, and it is the whole of what the owner pays us; what usually sits around a fee, and where ours sits, is in hotel management fees, explained by an operator. Pre-opening is priced as a separate project with an end date, and why that matters is in hotel pre-opening: what the months before opening actually decide.
The five questions that put this structure on the table with any operator are in Who gets the hotel in the divorce?
Where this model comes from
Weave is built on this structure: development, management and tech integration under one accountability, contracted toward the owner's entity. How it works in practice is on the hotel management page; fee structure and references are available on request.
Related reading: Who gets the hotel in the divorce? · The Elephant Hostel: building a hostel that holds its score · Hotel management fees, explained by an operator
Weave projects is a hospitality development and management company based in Amsterdam, working across the Netherlands and Europe.