An audit is only worth what it allows you to decide next, and a director wants to know what they are committing to before signing.

Why it matters

The fear is well known: an audit that leads to an equipment invoice, or a report that ends up in a drawer. We want to avoid both. Here is what happens, in order, once the visit is over.

What is established

Here, "established" refers to what we commit to delivering.

An oral debrief at the end of the visit. The management leaves with the main points the same day: where the venue stands, and where to start.

A written report within two weeks. The ten sub-objectives are scored in it, from the stay environment to image and messaging, on a grid that is identical from one venue to the next. Each recommendation carries its cost, its target gain and its payback period. The report contains quick actions under 10,000 €, as well as wording ready to publish and the list of what the venue must not say.

The Audited by IO8 label. The venue can say that it has been audited by IO8, with the date of the audit.

The report belongs to the venue. It can pass it on to whomever it wants, apply it alone, or do nothing with it. No obligation to buy follows from it.

What is emerging

The report proposes three implementation paths. They are not mutually exclusive, and none is imposed.

Upgrade the equipment. The venue brings its rooms up to the target values and, if it wishes, creates one or more longevity rooms. It can also make available, in any room, devices selected and tested at the Living Lab, for a supplement per night. The equipment can be bought wherever the venue wishes, from IO8 or elsewhere.

Add Living Lab experiences to its offer. Without equipping itself, the venue offers its guests services run by IO8. It earns a commission on them. IO8 complements the hotel; it does not compete with it.

Become an IO8 partner venue. For venues that want to go further: a lasting partnership, with terms defined case by case.

These paths are new. Their yield will depend on the first venues that take them, and we will publish what we learn from them.

What is unsupported

We do not say that the audit guarantees revenue. It puts figures on hypotheses, in our model, based on what the venue shows us.

We do not say that an audited venue becomes a longevity venue. The label attests that an audit took place, on a given date. It does not certify a result.

We do not imply that what follows is compulsory, nor that the audit would be incomplete without a purchase. A hotel that applies the quick actions on its own has used the audit as intended.

What a hotel can do

In the first month. Apply the quick actions: blackout, seals, temperature settings, filtered water, the team's vocabulary. Cost: from a few tens to a few hundred euros per room. Target gain: a room that moves closer to the target values, without building work.

Within the quarter. Measure its rooms and publish the readings. Equip a longevity room, or offer a first device by the night, to read the take-up rate before extending.

When the venue is ready. Move on to the Longevity Mission, if size and ambition justify it: three days with experts, a financial module based on the hotel's data, a deployment plan, a re-measurement at six months.

At any time. Write to us. Each next step goes through a request, then a quote; payment is made on invoice.

What the Living Lab measures

Measurement planned. The Living Lab, near Lisbon, is being equipped in waves; part of the equipment is being delivered.

What the Living Lab will test to prepare what follows an audit: the experiences a hotel can add to its offer, their real duration, their logistics; the stack's devices and their lending procedure. Every experience offered to a hotel will first have been run here. The readings will be published, dated.

Sources

• IO8, Longevity audit for venues page: content of the report, three implementation paths, Audited by IO8 label, report owned by the venue. io8.pt/venues
• IO8, Longevity Mission page: scope and re-measurement at six months.

The longevity audit for venues  ·  The Research Journal

IO8 Living Lab, near Lisbon. Measured, never promised.

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