Core Gameplay Boutique Hotel Manager

About Boutique Hotel Manager, from BoardGameGeek:

Boutique Hotel Manager is an economic strategy game where players compete as owners of independent boutique hotels. Each player manages pricing, staffing, and guest satisfaction over a simulated two-week operating period. Decisions made in early rounds influence later demand, reputation, and profitability. Each round represents a day of hotel operations, starting with players secretly setting daily room rates and allocating staff to key departments such as check-in, housekeeping, and breakfast service. Guests arrive with specific requirements, budgets, and flexibility levels. They book rooms with the hotels that best meet their expectations at the lowest qualifying price, introducing an element of simultaneous bidding and market competition. During the rating phase, hotels are evaluated based on how well they fulfill service commitments. Overbooking or understaffing reduces reputation, while consistent performance earns rating stars and repeat business. Players can also invest in room expansions to accommodate higher demand in later rounds. After two weeks of simulated operations, the player with the highest cash balance wins. In the event of a tie, overall hotel rating determines the winner. The game emphasizes economic optimization, market timing, and resource allocation under uncertainty-rewarding players who can anticipate demand while maintaining service excellence.