As we get deeper into the age of AI, many hotel leaders are beginning to reevaluate their reporting structures. And while much of the conversation has focused on dashboards, analytics, and automation, the GM Critique has quietly become one of the most frequently requested reporting improvements among corporate and property users.
Few reports hold more value to ownership and management teams. Yet despite its importance, the process behind the report has changed surprisingly little over the years. But now, the technology is finally catching up to what operators have been asking for: a simpler way to aggregate data and provide a more standardized, flexible, and sustainable report direct from your business intelligence (BI) software.
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Every hotel has some version of the GM critique, whether it’s called a scorecard, a monthly review, or something else entirely. Its purpose is to answer a simple question: what’s really happening at the property?
Why did labor miss the budget? Why did expenses come in high? Why are GSS scores slipping? Why is one hotel outperforming its comp set and another isn’t? Because when ownership reviews a property, they’re not just looking at numbers; they’re assessing the health of an asset.
The GM Critique has traditionally provided the essential information to connect the dots between the numbers and the events that produced them, such as:
As the person responsible for making the day-to-day decisions and understanding the market conditions surrounding the choices made for the month, GMs carried context that didn’t exist inside any of their systems. So, they often became the sole translators of the operational realities behind the performance metrics that ownership was reviewing.
Most GMs have come to accept (and maybe even dread) that the last few days of the month are going to be just a bit more stressful than the rest. The hotel doesn’t stop operating just because the reporting cycle has started. Guests still need attention. Staffing issues still need to be solved. Revenue still needs managing.
Yet, GMs are expected to stop and anticipate the questions executive leadership might have regarding financials, operations, and performance for that month. Since they are one of the only ones who can own those choices, they spend hours pulling STAR reports, labor data, AR balances, guest satisfaction scores, and more just to have the answers ready for when ownership reviews the numbers. And this comes with costs that sometimes get overlooked.
The first is that it takes away precious hours that the GM could spend leading teams, responding to market conditions, and improving performance. Instead, they are spent assembling information that has no standardized format, so GMs are responsible for building it as they see fit.
Another, perhaps more detrimental, cost is that there’s no way for that individualized operational knowledge to become part of the portfolio’s system, where others can learn from it later. The reasoning behind decisions, the context surrounding variances, and the lessons learned are lost if/when that GM leaves.
While the GM Critique has traditionally been a month-end or quarterly report, there’s no reason it has to stay that way. Many of the questions ownership asks at month-end are ones that GMs are asking and dealing with all month long.
If operators had a way to capture those answers as they happened (rather than during the last week of the month), the GM Critique could become a live document that users can harness to make better decisions. For example, a daily critique could provide a snapshot of current performance before a GM has to make staffing decisions. A weekly one could serve as a soft alert to pace trends and labor issues before they impact the month. The monthly/quarterly reviews would still occur, but they wouldn’t have to be the first time anyone sees the information.
That’s what HIA’s new GM Critique tool makes possible. It’s designed to capture the information that has historically lived in spreadsheets, emails, and conversations and preserve it in a way that helps teams learn from the past, align around the present, and make better decisions moving forward.
Having the ability to attach notes directly to the report gives GMs a much easier way to tell the story behind the numbers.
If an unexpected group booking requires additional staffing, the GM can make a note of it in the system. If the property accrues funds for a future phone replacement project that isn’t large enough to qualify as a capital expense, the reasoning can be documented alongside the charge. If guest satisfaction scores dip because of a temporary operational issue, the explanation can be recorded while the details are still fresh.
Whatever situation the GM finds themself in, they can immediately connect their knowledge to the metric it relates to. That creates a much richer reporting experience for everyone involved.
Since the explanation travels with the report, it makes it easier for ownership, management companies, and property teams to work from the same information. It also creates a historical record that can be referenced later when reviewing similar situations.
As AI capabilities continue to evolve, that context becomes even more valuable. Instead of trying to remember why labor ran high six months ago or why money was accrued for a specific project, GMs can quickly reference the decisions and explanations that were documented at the time. The goal isn’t to replace human judgment. It’s to give teams better access to the knowledge they’ve already created so they can make faster, more informed decisions in the future.
The hospitality industry is moving quickly toward a future shaped by AI and increasingly sophisticated BI reporting tools. However, these tools won’t give you the most bang for your buck without a strong foundation.
To generate the best insights, these tools need standardized data. To be able to maximize automation capabilities, they need consistency. To have AI help explain performance, there has to be context for it to learn from.
The GM Critique may seem like a small piece of that puzzle, but it’s an important one. By creating a structured, repeatable way to capture both performance data and operational context, your organization can start establishing the foundation that future tools will rely on.
If you’re ready to spend less time assembling information and more time acting on it, schedule a demo with HIA to see how we can help your team build a stronger foundation for better decisions.
Jaime Goss has over a decade of marketing experience in the hospitality industry. At Hotel Investor Apps, Jaime heads up marketing initiatives including brand strategy, website design, content, email marketing, advertising and press relations.
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