Project accomplished – let the work begin!

We are starting this article with “Malhari” music video, as it fits perfectly our posts dedicated to the completion of projects in India. We feel almost the same once they are completed! We are planning to publish a new video each time we finish another project for the Indian market.)

This time it will be about Rococco Morjim Hotel project! Instead of its simple description, we would like to talk about the most frequent mistakes that happen in the process of hotel projects implementation. This mistakes can stretch them in time and provide much unpredictability, as well as lot of additional costs (in our practice, it never happens any other way).

Even the story of our relation to this project speaks volumes. We were involved in the works on the hotel construction about a year ago, when its owner, our good friend, ran into problems due to inappropriately chosen contractor. The contractor has offered the lowest available price but didn’t have neither experience nor capacities to implement such a project.

I would like to ask – why one would even accept the job, but alas, there was no one to ask already. As a result, we got the building frame with a total area of 980 square meters, where columns were randomly arranged at every 3-5 meters on each story. The building should accommodate 20 residential rooms, small kitchen, living area for the staff, as well as all necessary technical rooms. We had to make a lot of efforts to do this, after which the customer realized that he also needed an interior design – and the works went on a new round. This repeated more than once, as more and more unresolved issues were arising as the construction proceeded.

It should be noted that similar problem occurs rather often, regardless of the country of the project. Trying to save some money, customers seek to limit themselves to particular parts of the project only – ignoring the works that seem to them insignificant. Apparently, expecting from builders telepathic abilities or that the unprocessed decisions should dissolve or disappear by themselves.

Sadly, whatever is left for later (no matter if it is done because of a shortage of funds, lack of time or simply forgetfulness) always comes out with additional difficulties and expenses.

We got the building in this state

The issue of such savings is closely related to the second major problem in the implementation of hotel projects – the understanding of their real market value. The thing is that about 120 completely different items are used on average to equip one Standard hotel room. This doesn’t include the finishing materials, repair works and construction in general.

Sadly, very often, beginner hoteliers have an illusion that room equipment consists of a bed with bedside tables, bath with a sink, TV, minibar and lighting, and, certainly, that all cannot exceed more than $ 5,000 per room. Taking the hotel lightly, customers simply don’t realize that it is impossible to develop communications plan, that should be done during the construction phase without well-developed interior and hotel equipment. Designing a communications plan allows to have bathroom pipes installed correctly or electric outlets in the right places – not to adapt them manually after, or even spend a fortune on rebuilding an already built object.

The third possible issue is an attempt to use different contractors in different works areas. Two situations arise here at once, that sadly, was not exception for the described project as well. Firstly, here comes a failed deadline – due to the fact that one of the contractors (let’s say the one, who was providing the building with water supply pipes), brakes the delivery times and ruins the work schedule of the rest of contractors. After all, everyone has his own, strictly fixed deadlines at the construction site.

And secondly, what is even more regrettable, is the question of the quality of the entire project implementation. Let’s say, we are satisfied with the project developed by the studio, even knowing that its implementation is assigned to a low-qualified builders. Keeping this in mind, we tried to develop simple solutions and describe them in details, but still the final stages and results of work can vary greatly in accordance with the abilities of the contractor, that turns this project into reality.

Exaggerating, we can say that no matter how nice and detailed the project may be, there are always contractors who use 18th century techniques and realize it very far from the original version. We don’t want to offend anyone, but our experience shows that the builders declaring the lowest cost in the market – are using outdated techniques.

Some photos from the construction process