Welcome to Start & Grow Your Independent Hotel, a business manual so visually confused, it looks like the lost slide from a real estate PowerPoint deck that never got to present. There’s a saying in hospitality: presentation is everything. This cover missed that memo and then designed a memo to apologise for missing it—badly.
Let’s start with the top half, which hits you in the face with enough fonts to qualify as a visual polyglot. The title sprawls across the cover like it’s trying to dominate a LinkedIn banner, with each word begging for attention in bold, glow-tinged desperation. The words “Start,” “Manage,” and “Grow” aren’t just on the cover — they’re tattooed on a set of poorly cut-out stock photos, each more confused than the last. A reception desk here, a resort-style pool there, and a hotel facade that looks like it belongs on a discount booking site. They’re meant to convey stages of business growth. Instead, they look like postcards from three completely unrelated industries.
Now let’s talk about that arrow — that one, lonely, meandering arrow. It squiggles across the photos with all the purpose of a lost PowerPoint SmartArt element, suggesting upward motion while creating only visual disarray. This isn’t a graphic. It’s a line on a mission to nowhere.
The background image, a high-res tropical coastline, does its best to class things up — but it’s no match for the chaos above. Nothing about the photos layered on top matches it. The lighting is inconsistent, the drop shadows are applied like stage makeup, and perspective has packed its bags and left the premises.
And the subtitle? A tangled cluster of buzzwords crammed in tight as if the designer feared white space would charge extra. The phrase “Step-by-Step Strategies for Building, Managing & Expanding” is both a promise and a threat, delivered in a font so forgettable it practically fades into the hotel-stamped background.
The overall effect? Less blueprint, more bulletin board. This cover is trying to sell a professional roadmap using the visual language of a DIY flyer for a hotelier Zoom seminar that got cancelled due to poor attendance. If you’re expecting polished expertise, this cover offers something closer to graphic design by committee — and the committee’s printer jammed.
In the hospitality industry, you want to project trust, clarity, and style. Instead, this cover suggests your hotel might be managed via outdated templates and pure optimism. No amount of concierge-level service can distract from a front door this confusing.
If this is the start, the grow is going to need serious renovations.