'Adapt business plan to continuous wave movements'

Business intelligence platform keeps hotel sector financially sound

With the expected VAT increase on overnight stays from 1 January 2026, the hotel industry faces a major challenge. Nothing new under the sun, says owner Stefan van Heerwaarden of Amstelveen-based software company Statler BI - Hospitality Intelligence. "Ever since nine-eleven, the sector has managed to weather various crises. The trick is to stay financially healthy and adjust your business plan in time. With our business intelligence platform, we help hotels do just that."

As financial controller, Stefan van Heerwaarden worked for many years at Amsterdam five-star hotels, including the NH Barbizon Palace Hotel and Hotel Krasnapolsky. During this period, he also met his current partner and IT specialist Maarten Diepenmaat. In 2011, the pair decided to pool their knowledge and start for themselves. "Our idea was to optimise business processes in hotels. Under the name Statler BI-Hospitality Intelligence, we then developed a business intelligence platform for automating the recurring cycle of budgeting, forecasting and reporting."

Adaptive sector

With his software company, Van Heerwaarden has witnessed all the developments in the hotel industry up close in recent years. "What you see is that the sector is subject to a continuous wave movement. After the turnover of the entire sector collapsed after the attacks on 11 spetember in New York in 2001, the credit crisis came on top of that in 2008, followed by the economic crisis in 2014 and later the corona crisis. Yet the industry has weathered all these storms well each time. I remember well that after nine-eleven everyone thought: oy, this is never going to be good again! But hotels turn out to be very adaptive and able to adjust their business plan to new circumstances in time."

Solvency

"To withstand crises well, without having to be on the government's drip every time, it is especially important to have your solvency in good order," Van Heerwaarden continues. "Our software platform helps hotels stay financially healthy, including by giving them insight into the profit and loss account at departmental level. A rule of thumb is that for room rental you are left with around 70 per cent profit at the bottom of the line, for food & beverage it is 25-35 per cent. For the hotel business as a whole, you should be left with at least 10 per cent profit. Ideally, 4 per cent of this is intended for investments in renovations and so on to improve sustainability and the guest experience. You can then use the remaining 6 per cent to replenish your equity, so that you have some extra meat on the bones and can fall back on that in more difficult times."

No doomsday scenario

Even now that dark clouds are gathering over the hotel industry because of the planned VAT increase from 9 to 21 per cent on overnight stays, Van Heerwaarden does not believe in doomsday scenarios. According to him, here too it is important to adjust your business plan in time: "In order to be well prepared for the VAT increase, we advise our clients - with the help of our software platform - to already make the 2026 budget including VAT adjustment in the first quarter of 2025. Then see what impact that will have on your overall organisation, so that you can respond to it already during 2025."   

Integrate data

The hotel sector is characterised by a complex environment with many different business processes that need to be seamlessly integrated. "But in practice, you often see that all that data is located in different places," Van Heerwaarden continues. "Therefore, what we also do with our software is to integrate the most essential data - such as from accounting, cash register, pms, time registration and guest satisfaction systems - into one platform. This avoids employees having to open five different software packages first thing in the morning to gather the necessary information. Thanks to our daily operational dashboards, employees therefore always have up-to-date insight into all important business results."