General Management Property interview prep.

Behavioural questions to expect

1. Walk me through your CV.
2. Walk me through your most impressive property assignment, turnaround, or commercial decision.
3. Tell me about a weakness, a failure, or feedback you've received and worked on.
4. Why a property general manager seat — and why hospitality specifically?
5. Why the sector — what's your point of view on this asset type and this market?
6. Why the firm?
7. When a guest is choosing between the firm and a top competitor in the sector, what's the property-level reason she ends up booking the firm?
8. If you had a STAR report and a trailing P+L for the firm, walk me through how you'd diagnose property health in the first 90 days.

Technical concepts to master

• USALI — the hotel P+L structure every general manager must read fluently

  Total Revenue (top of the USALI P+L) · Department Profit (rooms, F+B, spa, other operated) · GOP (Gross Operating Profit) · Below-GOP (Management Fee, FF+E Reserve, Fixed Charges, EBITDA)

• Revenue management — the segmentation, pricing, and displacement framework

  BAR (Best Available Rate) and rate structure · Market segmentation (transient vs. group, leisure vs. corporate, direct vs. OTA) · Displacement analysis · Compression and yielding

• The general manager seat — owner / brand / asset triangle

  Owner accountability — returns and cash flow · Brand accountability — standards and consistency · Asset accountability — the long-term competitive position

Practical drills

• Your 300-key property is running 70% occupancy at $220 ADR. The comp set is running 72% occupancy at $215 ADR (so comp set RevPAR is $154.80; your RevPAR is $154). Group on the books for next month is 4,500 room nights at $185 ADR. Transient pace is at 85% of same-time-last-year. Walk me through: (a) your current RGI / ARI / MPI; (b) the group displacement if transient would otherwise have filled at $235 ADR on the group dates; (c) your flow-through expectation if you grow RevPAR 5% next month on a flat cost base assumption.
• You are taking over the firm. Last year closed at RGI 92, RevPAR $145 (vs. comp set $158), GOP margin 28% (vs. brand-comparable 33%), GSS 7.6 (vs. brand target 8.2), eNPS 12 (vs. brand target 30+). Walk me through your 12-month commercial recovery plan.
• It's 9 p.m. on a Friday. Your front-desk supervisor calls — you've over-sold the hotel by 22 rooms and walks have already started; two arriving guests (a loyalty top-tier member and a wedding party of six staying on a group block) are at the desk threatening to escalate. Walk me through your next 45 minutes.

Smart-question anchors

• Owner-brand dynamics — how the owner-rep and the brand interact on capex, forecast, and operating priorities, and where the general manager sits in that triangle
• Capex priorities and FF+E reserve discipline — the renovation cycle, recent and forthcoming capex programmes, and the gating ROI criteria
• Commercial cadence — how the general manager, DORM, DOSM, and regional commercial team work together on weekly revenue calls, monthly forecast reviews, and the comp set re-cut
• Associate engagement and culture — eNPS trajectory, turnover discipline, leadership-development pipeline, and how the property invests in its team
• Guest experience and brand audit — GSS / NPS trajectory, top three guest-experience priorities for the next 12 months, and brand-audit readiness

Sourced from

STR (CoStar Hospitality) — RevPAR / ADR / occupancy benchmarking publications · Hotel Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) — revenue management resources · Cornell Centre for Hospitality Research — operating benchmark publications · American Hotel and Lodging Association (AHLA) — industry standards and crisis-response playbooks · Hotels Magazine, Hotel Management, and Skift trade press — operator commentary · Glassdoor and Hospitality Careers general manager interview threads