How The W Hotel In Montreal saved 84% On Bath Renovation Costs

Background

In 2014, they had performed major renovations in each of their rooms, 152 in total. The process was designed to maintain the standard of their hotel and the Marriott Hotels brand.

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The Problem

Although there was a large focus on renovating the entire room including the bathroom, they decided not to remove the bath. They felt that they were still fully functional and looked great. Besides, they had also invested a lot of money in these baths. There were, however, a few challenges that they faced:

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1. When room renovations were completed, It was clear that something was off. The bath had lost its lustre and shine. This made the bath look old and did not align with the goal of refreshing the look of the entire room.
2. A decision needed to be made as to whether or not they should replace the baths or find some way to recycle and extend the life of the bathtubs. Note: The original bath that was installed 14 years ago cost the hotel approximately $6000 per room. Bath installations were performed in 97 of the 152 rooms.  
3. The Maintenance Director was given a $600,000.00 budget and to find a solution to the problems above. 
4. Consideration needed to be made on the downtime of each room and the time it would take to complete the project. They were given 3 years by management. If a decision was made to replace the baths it would be considered a major renovation. This would mean that a whole floor would be completely closed. 
5. Whatever solution was selected, they needed to be mindful of the needs of the guests: minimal to no noise and dust, odour from chemicals or materials,…

Delivering the Solution

In our opinion, there was no need to get rid of the original $6,000 bathtubs. They were still in great working condition but they had only lost their shine through normal wear and tear. Their problems would be resolved by refinishing all their baths using our products and services.

After performing a test on one of their baths and showing it to upper management they were able to see how we were able to revive the look and shine. The best thing was that no guests could tell that work was being performed, since there were no offensive odours or excessive noise. They decided to move forward with the proposal to finish all the 97 baths.

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We worked mainly with the maintenance and housekeeping teams to schedule work around low occupancy.  This would minimize the loss of revenue to the hotel while allowing us to complete 3 – 5 baths (on average) per week.

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Results

In the end, Durabath was able to provide the following results:

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1. Our solution cost a total of $106,530. We were able to save the Montreal W Hotel $493,470.
2. By avoiding major renovations at this time we were able to help them recycle 97 perfectly functioning bathtubs.
3. Instead of the 3 year window, we were able to refinish all the baths within a year.
4. By avoiding major renovations, we estimated that they were able to help the hotel earn $228,000 in revenue (over a 3 year period)
5. There was minimal disturbance to other guests. Our solution was odourless and did not cause excessive dust or overspray.

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The bottom line was that the Montreal W Hotel was able to cut its capital costs by 84% without affecting service levels.