Hotel Soft Openings explained

What exactly is a hotel soft opening?

Writing about hotels as I do, it is sometimes easy to fall into the trap of assuming that everybody reading this blog knows all the hotel industry associated terms and vocabulary.

I was reminded of this last week when I showed a friend of mine my recent review of Sivatel Bangkok and one of the first things he did was ask me what a soft opening was.

A soft opening, or soft launch is an unofficial opening, usually held with little or no publicity, weeks or months before the official grand opening. This allows the hotel to become more organized the first few weeks or months before the more publicized Grand Opening, and gives the management and staff a chance to become familiar with the daily operations of the daily running of the hotel.

During such soft openings, the hotel may run at reduced capacity, perhaps only opening up certain floors or wings of the property, and in some cases, certain facilities may not be available or fully functioning, such as the pool or spa.

Rates during soft openings are often greatly reduced from the rack rate, in order to compensate for any inconveniences guests may experience while the staff work out the kinks in running the hotel or resort. An example of such inconveniences might be that room service may take a little longer than expected, or the pool may not be open yet; there may even be some construction sounds as the finishing touches are being applied to the hotel. In other cases, the buildings and facilities are complete, but the staff are not yet fully trained/prepared.

Guest inconveniences are certainly not a requirement of a soft opening, as was proven by The Hansar in Bangkok this past March, which was still gearing up for its grand opening when I stayed there in March. (Hansar review here.) The Hansar was at 100% capacity and apart from the reduced room rate, there were absolutely no indications that it was running anything apart from full steam and all hands on deck.

Have you ever stayed at a hotel during a soft opening? If so, what was your experience like?
Would you consider staying at a hotel while it was still in the pre-open preparations stage, if some inconveniences were compensated by a cheaper rate?

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