Case Study

How Aperture Hotels Protected Returns in a Tight Market

Reshma Belur

Actabl · April 01, 2026

When RevPAR declined for four consecutive quarters, Aperture Hotels used Hotel Effectiveness to tighten labor forecasting, reduce overstaffing risk, and protect EBITDA.

Why it matters: In a flat demand environment, labor is the largest controllable cost and the hardest to manage without real-time visibility. Aperture's results show what disciplined, demand-based labor forecasting can do for owner returns when revenue growth is no longer available as a cushion.

Hotel Effectiveness replaced manual Excel-based labor tracking with structured, portfolio-wide scheduling and productivity monitoring, giving Aperture's property teams real-time visibility into staffing levels relative to actual occupancy and demand.

Top 3 Core Objectives: Aperture needed to move from reactive, spreadsheet-driven labor management to proactive, demand-based forecasting in order to protect EBITDA across a 20-property portfolio during a period of declining RevPAR and rising operating costs.

Control portfolio-wide labor costs: Replace manual Excel tracking with a structured system that gave property teams consistent visibility into labor spend versus actual business demand across all 20 properties.
Forecast staffing to real: Align staffing levels to occupancy and demand patterns in real time, reducing overstaffing risk without compromising service standards.
Protect and grow EBITDA: Give ownership groups tighter expense control and more reliable financial performance during a year marked by RevPAR decline and margin pressure.

"Our property leadership teams can save an average of four and a half minutes per departure room when we tightly track productivity in Hotel Effectiveness. That quickly turns into thousands and tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a couple of years."

Charles Oswald

CEO, Aperture Hotels

👍 CEO, Aperture Hotels Charles Oswald said that Tracking productivity at the room level compounds into significant cost savings across the portfolio.:

"Our property leadership teams can save an average of four and a half minutes per departure room when we tightly track productivity in Hotel Effectiveness. That quickly turns into thousands and tens of thousands of dollars over the course of a couple of years."

⚖️ The selection process: During their research process, Charles Oswald evaluated Actabl's product differentiators, customer support, and holistic value as a strategic partner and ultimately decided that Actabl was the best fit solution:

CEO, Aperture Hotels Charles Oswald said, about their decision: "We want our technical solutions to be a better way of doing things, not just another thing to do."

📈 The results: Over 11 months, Aperture's disciplined approach to demand-based labor forecasting stabilized EBITDA across its portfolio, protecting owner returns in a year defined by RevPAR decline and rising cost pressure.

18 property transactions completed in 11 months, supported by EBITDA stability driven by tighter labor discipline and expense control.
Tracking productivity in Hotel Effectiveness saved an average of four and a half minutes per departure room - translating to thousands, and over time tens of thousands, of dollars across the portfolio.
Aperture moved from after-the-fact labor review to proactive management, using early-warning indicators to align staffing to demand before costs were incurred.