At Odyssey Hotel Group’s year-end gathering at Courtyard by Marriott Bremen, Tim Bol and Nienke Daghfal-Veldman received the group’s Innovation and Impact Award.
The recognition marked a journey led by Odyssey’s own people—from an initial trial with a few hotels in 2024 to PMI becoming part of the operating approach across more than 20 hotels.
The work began with a clear question: how could hotel teams align labour planning more closely with actual business activity?
Odyssey’s leaders wanted properties to see changing demand earlier, set clearer productivity targets and give general managers and department heads information they could use in time to influence performance.
In a measured six-month case covering 18 hotels, Odyssey reported a three-percentage-point improvement in GOP.
The programme combined live forecasting at profit-centre level, visual labour planning and management dashboards with weekly coaching and six-week rolling labour plans. Executives supported the implementation, general managers set direction and department heads used their own data to inform decisions.
Hotels also shared practices across the group, helping the new management rhythm spread beyond individual properties.
Later in 2025, Odyssey described PMI as having moved from its initial trial to implementation across a portfolio of more than 20 hotels. That wider adoption became the achievement recognised by the Innovation and Impact Award.
A public statement from Odyssey CEO Gonzalo Carpintero Navarro added an important customer perspective. He reported that Odyssey had reduced hours while selling more room nights and maintaining quality. He also explained that the goal was not to minimise hours, but to improve productivity through daily forecasting, appropriate manning and top-line growth—bringing more people and hours into the operation when and where they were needed.
That principle placed labour within a wider performance context. Productivity was not indiscriminate cost reduction; it was the alignment of people and resources with demand.
Odyssey’s approach illustrated Profit Conversion Management™ in practice. Forecasts informed labour plans, hotel leaders acted on current information, and operational decisions were connected with their effect on GOP.
The Innovation and Impact Award recognised the people who made that change part of Odyssey’s operating culture. Tim Bol, Nienke Daghfal-Veldman and teams across the group helped turn a trial into a repeatable way of working—one that combined measurable impact with adoption across a growing portfolio.
