Twelve rooms short on a wedding Friday

The hotel has 48 rooms, six out of service, so 42 sellable rooms. There are 54 arrivals, so 12 rooms must be relocated. I would keep the 20-room wedding group in-house. It is a signed contract, the couple arrive at 18:30, and walking part of the group would create a visible and reputational problem at the event. That leaves 34 individual bookings competing for 22 remaining rooms, so 12 individuals must be walked.

Selection should use objective, documented criteria, not personal preference: length of stay, prepaid or guaranteed status, repeat-guest value, mobility or vulnerability, and ease of transport to the partner hotel. A one-night leisure booking is easier to move than a five-night prepaid booking. The repeat customers should be kept if possible, because the lifetime value is higher and the relationship is at risk. The wedding party's immediate family member should also be kept, since moving them would affect the wedding itself. If there are more eligible guests than rooms, offer the move first to volunteers with an incentive, then apply the criteria consistently. Do not discriminate on any protected characteristic, and record the reason for each choice.

Budget: 12 rooms at the partner hotel at €95 = €1,140. Local transport at about €10 per room = €120. That leaves €240 for calls, welcome drinks or small goodwill. The hotel should pay the partner directly and should not charge the displaced guest for the original room. If a guest has prepaid €120, do not promise a cash refund on top unless authorised; instead explain that the partner hotel is a 4-star equivalent and that the hotel is covering the full cost. Use the remaining €240 for taxi coordination, a drink voucher, or loyalty points rather than spreading it thinly.

Communication must be personal and early. Call each affected guest before they arrive, apologise clearly, explain the move, confirm the partner booking and transport, and give a named contact. Do not wait until they are at the desk. For the wedding group, keep all 20 rooms and brief the couple discreetly; do not make an announcement. For the individuals being moved, offer the choice of the partner hotel or, if they prefer, a full cancellation with refund. Log every call and promise. The €1,500 cap is enough only if the plan is tight: 12 rooms, one transport arrangement, and no open-ended taxi or cash offers.

First, establish why six rooms were still sellable in the system when the drain problem was known. The rooms should have been blocked as soon as the fault was identified, and the reservation manager should have a rule that out-of-order rooms are removed from inventory in real time. Second, set a realistic overbooking buffer for peak weekends, but do not use overbooking to compensate for unresolved maintenance. Third, make the partner-hotel agreement formal: number of rooms, rate, cut-off time, transport responsibility and billing. An informal favour is not a plan when 12 rooms are involved.

Fourth, create a walk procedure with pre-approved authority, a script, a compensation grid and a named decision-maker when the general manager is off-site. Fifth, review the drain maintenance schedule and keep an emergency plumber contact. Finally, debrief the wedding couple and the walked guests; the hotel's reputation depends more on how it handled the move than on the plumbing failure itself. The test is whether the same situation next month produces a controlled, documented relocation rather than a 16:00 scramble.