I am preparing a business plan for operating a newly built conference
center in Southern China. This facility will be a combination of
hotel, golf range, and gourmet restaurants. Information regarding
financial status of similar facilities, itemized operation cost, and
market competition will be needed for my plan.

In order to produce reasonable and realistic estimate, I need to gain
financial information about current comparable facilities in Southern
China. I understand the potential magnitude and complexity of my
questions. However, the primary objective is to collect as much
relevant raw data as possible. Please also provide your sources to
support your findings. Extra bonus/tips may be added for quality
report. ** I would like to have the research done by Dec 29th 2005 **

Here is some information about the facility:
The facility will have 50 fully furnish rooms with two gourmet
restaurants (each will have a different theme with a capacity of 50
people), conference service, and a golf range which has a capacity of
30 people. The strategy will lean toward to upper class consumers
which include local business, travelers and local residents.

I would like to have a detailed cost estimate for this facility, such as:
1. personnel expanse with employee structure
2. maintenance on golf range, hotel and restaurants  
3. cost per room for pricing purpose,
4. insurance and etc.

I would also like to have some information about comparable facilities, such as:
1. recent revenue and profitability,
2. marketing strategy, such as PR, membership information, and etc. 
3. location and customer segments, 
4. seasonal occupancy rate, and etc.

---

Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 24 Dec 2005 09:42 PST

ch168-ga,

I may be able to look around for whatever raw information is out
there, but before doing so, I wanted to clarify a few things:

--What sort of golf facility?  A driving range, or a full-fledged golf
course?  If the latter, I can't imagine a course with a capacity of
only 30 people (unless it's putt-putt golf!).

--Similarly, the capacities of your hotel and restaurants don't make
sense to me?  A 50-room hotel just seems too small to support two
gourmet restaurants that can each seat several hundred people per
meal...are you assuming that most of your food business will be from
non-hotel guests?

--A 50-room hotel is also a bit on the small side for hosting anything
but a fairly modest conference set-up.


Can you respond to my comments, and let us know a bit more about what
you have in mind?

Can you identify one or two existing hotels in China that strike you
as similar to the concept you're thinking about?

Lastly, and most importantly, will you be satisfied with a best-effort
answer to your question, even if (as umiat-ga has already noted) it is
unlikely that there is much publicly-available on the details of such
facilities?


Looking forward to your reply,

pafalafa-ga

---

Clarification of Question by ch168-ga on 27 Dec 2005 13:47 PST

Thank you for your response, pafalafa.  I did miss your reply. Here
are some clarifications.

The facility is driving range. It has a capacity of 60 people, not 30.
 It is located nearing an industrial and luxurious residential area;
therefore I expect to make up the restaurant volume by local
residents. The business is largely focus on providing services to meet
local business demands.

Since it is only a business plan at this stage, the number of room
hasn't yet been finalized. That's one of the tasks that I need to do
after completing the data analysis.

most of the findings that I have are in Chinese.  Here are some
websites and models related to my project in Southern China.


http://www.szicc.com/frame.htm
This is really close to what I am trying to do, only bigger. (Chinese)

http://www.sz-tianpinghotel.com/hotel-jj.htm
Very good hotel and similar to what I am trying to do. It also has
some pricing / capacity information. (Chinese)

http://www.golfclub.com.cn/hygg/content/2005/8/05080302.html
The website offers information about employee structure in a Chinese
golf club. This is not a complete list apparently, but since they are
new and hiring employees, I would imagine this has most of their
staffing information. (English)

I imagine a business consultant would charge several thousands of
dollars for a report along these lines, as opposed to the $150 a
researcher would get for spending a week researching this type of
information!

Thanks for your feedback. I am not looking for any detailed business
analysis, which I understand, as well as you do, the high cost
associated to it. I am basically looking for some existing data and
best practices so I could do benchmarking. Qualified financial
statement, membership information, employee structure or anything I
listed would help. These data would facilitate my understanding to the
market and the quality of my business proposal.  Detailed information
will be appreciated, as I mentioned, I am willing to add tips or open
separate subjects for further researches. Please let me know if this
is still not clear or unrealistic.

I may be wrong, but I just can't imagine any researcher having access
to the type of insider information you are seeking, such as "Qualified
financial statement, membership information, employee structure."

I understand that ?Qualified financial statement, membership
information, employee structure? can be very broad. Perhaps I can
narrow it a little bit more. If you can provide projected personnel
expanses with employee structure in the business that I mentioned
above, it will be good enough. I believe that the models of personnel
structure, itemized maintenance costs on golf range, hotel and
restaurants can be researched and found. It does not have to include
everything, but key items. What I am looking for here is to make sure
I didn?t miss any key items in my plan.

As far as the financial data, I will accept any projected number or
model that is commonly used in hotel/golf course forecasting in
Southern China. The financial forecast could also be calculated based
on the cost and pricing estimate. I won't hold you accountable for the
data accuracy (I will also conduct my own researches). It will be nice
(but not necessary) to include some comparison with related business
data though.

If you have personally involved in similar projects and willing to
share your expertise, it will be appreciated. What I am trying to do
is to collect as many data and opinions as possible to help conduct a
well thought business plan. I have been conducting my own researches
and analysis also. However, I would like to read more researches and
opinions if possible.

If you?re still having questions about my request, please provide me
some ideas that you think that are feasible to research.

ch168-ga,

I'm not sure if you saw my note of 12/24 (above) so I've re-posted it here:


I may be able to look around for whatever raw information is out
there, but before doing so, I wanted to clarify a few things:

--What sort of golf facility?  A driving range, or a full-fledged golf
course?  If the latter, I can't imagine a course with a capacity of
only 30 people (unless it's putt-putt golf!).

--Similarly, the capacities of your hotel and restaurants don't make
sense to me?  A 50-room hotel just seems too small to support two
gourmet restaurants that can each seat several hundred people per
meal...are you assuming that most of your food business will be from
non-hotel guests?

--A 50-room hotel is also a bit on the small side for hosting anything
but a fairly modest conference set-up.


Can you respond to my comments, and let us know a bit more about what
you have in mind?

Can you identify one or two existing hotels in China that strike you
as similar to the concept you're thinking about?

Lastly, and most importantly, will you be satisfied with a best-effort
answer to your question, even if (as umiat-ga has already noted) it is
unlikely that there is much publicly-available on the details of such
facilities?


Looking forward to your reply,

pafalafa-ga