Hospitality · Procurement
Buy the operation, not the staffing table.
An RFP that asks only for headcount, uniforms, and price will receive polished versions of the same answer. The property still will not know how the curb behaves on its hardest night.
The reset
Give bidders the demand problem and ask them to show their operating choices.
Provide intervals, demand classes, physical constraints, service windows, historical exceptions, and commercial rules. Then evaluate how each bidder turns those facts into a safe, measurable operation.
Four better questions
Make the proposal reveal the system
How will you model and staff our peaks?
Ask for the demand assumptions, not only the resulting roster.
A serious answer separates arrivals, retrievals, occupancy, and special-event demand; shows productive and supervisory roles; and explains what triggers a staffing change.
Who may make a curb decision?
Capacity and recovery require authority in the moment.
Ask who can add coverage, stop intake, move overflow, resolve a guest complaint, approve a refund, and notify property leadership. Escalation should be a named operating path, not a sales promise.
What record will we share?
Reporting should connect service claims to individual sessions and exceptions.
Demand
What happened
Arrivals, retrievals, occupancy, and turnaways by useful interval.
Service
What guests felt
Wait distributions, complaints, recoveries, and unresolved requests.
Custody
What moved
Vehicle, key, attendant, condition, and handoff records with appropriate access.
Money
What settled
Charges, validations, refunds, disputes, tips, and property obligations.
→Ask bidders to show a sample operating review, not a screenshot of a dashboard with no decision attached.
The overlooked phase
Procurement includes the way in and the way out
How will you open, transition, and exit?
The beginning and end expose operational maturity.
Request a site survey, staffing and training timeline, key and claim migration plan, communications, data-return process, incident handoff, and business-continuity plan. A provider should be able to leave responsibly as well as arrive impressively.
The scoring rule
Score the explanation, then test the evidence.
Separate mandatory requirements from scored judgment. Weight operating model, safety, guest experience, workforce management, technology, transition, and commercial clarity. Invite finalists to work through the same peak-night scenario so differences become observable.
Give every bidder the same scenario and evaluation criteria. For example: a rainstorm begins during a 120-car event release, one garage elevator is unavailable, and a guest reports damage while the queue is building. Ask for the first ten minutes, the next hour, the records created, and the property communication. The response reveals authority, safety priorities, service recovery, staffing flexibility, and whether technology supports the operation or merely decorates the proposal.
Reference checks should test those claims with operators and property partners who lived through a difficult opening or exception, not only a polished launch.
