Many people still think that procurement is “just ordering goods,” but those who work in the field or understand it well know that it is one of the business functions that most clearly reveals how organized a company truly is. This is especially evident in complex and highly demanding industries such as hospitality.
In a hotel, everything must operate seamlessly at the same time—from the kitchen, restaurant, and bar to housekeeping, wellness, maintenance, and capital projects. If a disruption in supply occurs at any point, the impact is not limited to the warehouse—it is felt directly by the guest. And today’s guests have little tolerance for improvisation.
That is why procurement in hotels is not just an operational routine. It is a strategic function that directly impacts both brand reputation and profitability.
Challenges That Grow with the Size of the System
In smaller hotels, procurement is relatively straightforward. However, in larger hotel groups such as Valamar, Plava Laguna, and Maistra, the situation is significantly different—procurement manages dozens of properties and thousands of items, along with strong seasonality and frequent investment cycles.
In such a system, it is not enough to “get a good price.” It is necessary to:
align quality standards across multiple properties,
track budgets by location and project,
maintain control over capital expenditure—especially during renovations, when project cost estimates can include hundreds, or even thousands, of line items.
Without a clear structure and digital support, the process very quickly becomes unmanageable and difficult to oversee.
What the Daily Reality of Hotel Procurement Looks Like
In practice, it looks like this: deadlines are tight, part of the goods are imported, part is urgent, and offers differ not only in price—but also in delivery times, payment terms, and logistics costs.
In investment projects, the situation is even more sensitive. When multiple rooms or common areas are being renovated, every deviation from the cost estimate can potentially lead to budget overruns. If there is no unified overview of bids, document versions, and approval status, the risk of errors increases—and in hospitality, mistakes are both costly and highly visible.
Centralized or Decentralized Procurement?
Most large hotel systems use a hybrid model. Strategic suppliers and major contracts are managed centrally, while individual properties retain a certain level of autonomy for operational procurement.
Problems arise when these two levels are not connected through a unified system. In such cases, management lacks a clear overview of total spend, controlling relies on fragmented data, and procurement loses time on administration instead of focusing on analysis and negotiations.
This is exactly where digitalization plays a key role.
How Digitalization Is Transforming Hotel Procurement
Digital tools today are no longer a “nice-to-have,” but a necessity for effectively managing hotel systems. Instead of communication through emails, Excel spreadsheets, and unmanageable document versions, modern systems enable a structured and transparent procurement process.
Solutions such as Ensolva enable simpler collection and comparison of offers, better cost control, and faster decision-making based on real data.
A particularly important feature in hospitality is a new functionality recently introduced in our software: working with project cost estimates. In investment projects, this allows procurement to precisely compare line items from cost estimates with supplier and contractor bids, track deviations from the budget, and avoid manual data entry and multiple document versions that often create chaos in the process.
In addition, the system enables easy submission of alternative offers and their later analysis, giving procurement more options, while budgets can be tracked directly through the Financial plan module.
In this way, procurement gains a clearer overview of costs by property, project, and category, while management gains greater control over investments and profitability.
According to data from the Hospitality Financial and Technology Professionals (HFTP) organization, integrated procure-to-pay systems significantly reduce manual errors and speed up processing workflows, which directly impacts operational costs. In an industry where margins are under pressure, this is not negligible.
Project Cost Estimates in Digital Hotel Procurement
The benefits of the Project Cost Estimates subsystem are numerous for all participants in the procurement process:
- Designers can continue creating cost estimates in Excel, in the way they are accustomed to,
- Procurement spends less time preparing and adapting cost estimates for upload,
- Suppliers fill in the cost estimate in a familiar Excel format, without any significant changes to their way of working,
- Offer analysis delivers the greatest leap forward for procurement: complex cost estimates are analyzed automatically, which in some cases can save several working days per tender.
The functionality was developed in collaboration with large hotel chains, in line with the real procurement challenges of the hospitality industry.
Procurement as a Strategic Partner to Management
When procurement has visibility over spend, it can plan. When it has data on supplier performance, it can negotiate better. When it has control over project cost estimates, it can protect the budget—line by line.
At that point, it stops being an administrative support function and becomes a strategic partner to management.
A hotel that has control over procurement has control over costs, and therefore over profit. In a time of volatile prices for energy, food, and logistics, this is one of the few levers of stability.
Interested in how Ensolva can support procurement processes in your hotel or hotel group? Contact us and let’s arrange a demo.
