HVS discusses hotel management fees in this brief note.
Hotel managers are typically paid a base fee equal to 2.0%-to-3.0% of total revenue—3.0% being the most common—plus an incentive. Incentive fee structures vary, but over the last decade or so, they have coalesced around a formula that pays managers 10% to 20% of cash flows that exceed a certain performance threshold. This threshold is generally reached when the net operating income exceeds a return on the owner’s investment of between 8.0% and 10%.