The Mission, Refined
An Update From the Founder
Written by Daniel Engelsman, Founder and Principal Consultant, February 2026
Time has flown.
Even though it feels like yesterday, it was just a couple of months ago that I published a letter on this site explaining why Incrementalist exists. It traced the thread from my media and marketing career through to hospitality, connecting the dots between brand strategy, cultural relevance, and the guest experience. I meant every word of it, and I still do.
But a huge amount has happened since the publication of that letter. As the thinking has progressed, the mission itself has crystallised. And what was once a broad enthusiasm for helping hotels improve has narrowed into something much more precise and, I believe, far more useful.
So, this is an update of sorts. A celebration of the work thus far, and an honest look at where things are heading.
The mission got specific
In that first letter, I talked about helping hotels refine what already works and find small points of friction that guests feel and teams tolerate. However, the reality is that not all hotels need what we offer.
The hotels that genuinely need what Incrementalist brings to the table are the independents and small group hotels: the owner-operated boutiques, the heritage properties, the 20-room haveli in Rajasthan, the 60-room coastal property in Sri Lanka, the converted townhouse in the Cotswolds. These are the places with soul, character, and stories that no corporate chain could ever replicate, and yet they are competing against organisations with dedicated revenue teams, centralised booking optimisation, and multi-property data insights. It is not a fair fight, and it never has been.
Incrementalist exists to level the playing field. Consider us as David's slingshot (if you'll forgive a biblical reference!). We're not here to encourage independent hotels to be more corporate, but we do want to give them access to the same strategic operational scrutiny the big chains deploy automatically, without requiring corporate budgets, expensive systems, or any compromise on what makes them distinctive.
From philosophy to product
I was previously light on specifics, but through incubation and iteration, the product portfolio has taken proper shape.
Our flagship service is the Digital Pathways Review: a comprehensive diagnostic of how a hotel shows up online, how its booking journey performs, and where revenue is quietly leaking. Every recommendation is quantified in pounds (or equivalent locally currency!) and prioritised by ease of implementation. No vague best practices or generic checklists. The output is specific: this adjustment will generate 'x amount of' revenue, takes 'x amount of time' to implement, and costs close to nothing.
Beyond that, we have built out a Strategic Property Assessment, an on-site immersive review where we experience the property as a guest and observe the operational choreography first-hand. Service timing, upsell moments, menu structure, lighting, the emotional arc from arrival through to departure. The kinds of things that management stops noticing because they are inside the business day in, day out (but that your guests likely do notice).
We have also introduced recurring support (quarterly refreshes and implementation partnerships) because I recognised early on that a report which sits in a drawer is worth nothing. The value is always in the execution.
Zero-capex, every time
One of the sharpest evolutions has been our commitment to zero-capex recommendations. If a suggestion requires construction, major technology investment, or significant capital expenditure, it is simply not our work. Most independent hotels do not have a property problem. The buildings are often beautiful and highly functional. The rooms are far more than adequate. What needs refinement is the service choreography, the pricing strategy, the digital booking pathway, and the way value is presented to guests. These are execution problems, and they are surprisingly inexpensive to fix.
To give you a flavour: lighting that is too bright for a dinner atmosphere can have an £8,000 annual revenue impact. A menu with the bestsellers buried on page three might cost £15,000 in missed opportunity. Late checkout offered for free (or not at all) instead of tiered pricing? Potentially £25,000 left on the table.
These are not big, dramatic problems. They are subtle, they require zero capital investment to rectify and they are costing properties thousands every month.
The name still fits
The Japanese call it kaizen: continuous improvement through small, deliberate refinements that compound over time. That philosophy was baked into the name from the very beginning, and it has only become more central to how we operate. Excellence is built through 2% improvements across 50 touchpoints, not one 100% overhaul. Small hinges swing big doors.
Our pilot project with a heritage property in Kolkata identified £47,000 in annual revenue opportunities through operational refinements alone: late checkout pricing, post-show cocktail service, menu curation, spa utilisation, atmosphere adjustments. All zero-capex. All implementable within weeks. That experience confirmed everything I had suspected and gave me the confidence to build something more structured around it.
What comes next
That first letter asked you to trust me based on who I am. This one invites you to engage based on what we deliver.
The plan for 2026 is deliberately focused: serve 30 to 40 properties, wherever they are in the world, with the care and rigour each one deserves, and showcase a body of evidence that small refinements create outsized results. Whether that is a heritage haveli in Rajasthan, a boutique property on the Vietnamese coast, or a family-run hotel in the English countryside, the work is the same: find the revenue that is being left on the table and help the people who built the place recover it.
I am more excited now than when I wrote that first letter, and that is not because the ambition has grown (it was always there) but because the clarity has arrived. I know who we serve. I know what we deliver. And I know why it matters.
There is something I find quite fitting about the way this business has developed. The philosophy we bring to our clients, that excellence is built through iteration, through the tightening of screws and the steady compounding of small adjustments, is exactly how we have been building Incrementalist itself. Every conversation, every project, every piece of feedback has refined the offering further. The services are sharper than they were three months ago, and they will be sharper again three months from now. I would be a fraud if I didn't apply the approach to my own house first.
Independent hotels deserve to compete fairly. They shouldn't have to sacrifice authenticity for efficiency, or choose between character and competitiveness. We level the playing field, and we are getting better at it all the time.
Many thanks for reading. If you run an independent property and suspect there is more to capture, I would love to hear from you.
Daniel Engelsman Founder and Principal Consultant, Incrementalist
