Benchmarking the costs for operating and maintaining engineering facilities of luxury hotels in Hong Kong

Tourism, a pillar of the service industries in Hong Kong, entails quality hotel accommodations to flourish. Among a wide range of hotel support services, operation and maintenance (O&M) of engineering facilities like lift, air-conditioning, lighting and fire services, inter alia, are typically executed or managed by an in-house engineering department. The expenditures of such department, including the costs for internal staff, routine repairs, capital projects and utilities consumption, are essential factors of production of O&M services. Whereas benchmarking can evaluate the cost-effectiveness of these factors, useful cost benchmarks remain to be scarce. A benchmarking study on 10 luxury hotels was completed recently. This paper reports the design of the study, the process of data collection and its difficulties, the major O&M cost elements and the factors influencing their magnitude. The benchmarks presented, including the dominant energy cost, are some useful findings whose coverage needs to be further expanded to facilitate more holistic benchmarking of hotel facilities.