The problem: every salesperson promises a different capacity
In a hotel with three rooms and four people selling, there are twelve possible answers to «how many fit in the Mediterráneo?». None of them is wrong on purpose: each comes from a different plan, from a wedding that went well, or from something the banqueting manager said two years ago.
The cost is not the difference between 180 and 190. It is that when a client compares two emails from the same hotel and sees two numbers, they stop trusting the whole hotel. And that the set-up on the day gets done by whoever did not sell it, using the number of whoever did.
One template per set-up, not one per room
This is the decision that puts everything else in order. A room does not have a capacity: it has as many as there are set-ups offered in it. Keeping a single template per room forces a recalculation every time and hands the problem straight back.
The practical move is to limit the catalogue to what actually sells. Five set-ups for a large room and two or three for a small one cover ninety per cent of enquiries; the rest gets solved by starting from the closest template.
Naming rooms and set-ups so nobody gets confused
The rule that works is the dullest one: the room’s commercial name, the type of set-up and the capacity, in that order. «Mediterráneo · Banquet rounds of 10 · 190» is understood in an email, in the kitchen and in the office.
What to avoid are names that only mean something internally: «Set-up A», «the usual one», «the July wedding one». They last until somebody new arrives, and then they cost an event.
Who may change a template and who may not
This is the rule that holds up all the others. If anyone can change the Mediterráneo template, in three months there are five versions again, with the added problem that now they all look official.
The split that works: banqueting management or the head of floor maintain the templates; the sales team use and copy them, and what they touch is the copy for their own event. Whoever sells does not need to be able to move a wall, and this is not mistrust: it is that moving a wall on the plan changes the capacity of every future enquiry.
What you gain
An answer and a plan in the same email, the same day. For a corporate enquiry, which is nearly always going to three hotels at once, replying the same day with a plan of the format they asked for is the difference between being in the comparison and not being in it.
Internally you gain something less visible and worth more: Saturday’s set-up stops depending on who is on shift. The room is laid out the way the template says, and if something does not work, you change the template and it is changed for everyone.