Incentive Management Fees Return With Recovery

Robert Mandelbaum and Tim Dick, Ph.D. | May 4, 2023

By Robert Mandelbaum and Tim Dick, Ph.D. Most management contracts include an incentive management fee in addition to the base management fee. The incentive fees are designed to make management more conscious of the bottom line since owners achieve their returns and pay their debts from profits, not revenue. Incentive management fees are earned by the operator once a designated profit threshold is achieved. Given the depressed performance of hotels during the 2020 industry downturn, unsurprisingly almost no hotel owners paid an incentive fee to their managers that year. Fortunately for U.S. hotel operators, incentive fees have risen con...