The hidden cost of answering RFPs by hand in an independent hotel
Do the math: 40 RFPs/month × 6 hours each. That's 240 hours, or 1.5 full-time people. And that's before the RFPs you lose.
The most repeated sentence by hotel directors when you ask about their MICE ops is: "I don't have time, but I'm not losing that much either". Let's do the math.
Direct cost
An independent 4★ hotel in Spain gets between 25 and 60 MICE RFPs per month. Take the average: 40. Each RFP, answered well, takes 6 hours between reading, checking availability, calculating prices, writing the proposal, and laying out the PDF.
240 hours a month. At an average gross salary of €28,000/year for a junior sales rep, that's about €15/h employer cost. €3,600/month just in response time. €43,200/year.
Opportunity cost
If your team has capacity for 40 RFPs/month but 60 come in, you lose 20. Average MICE conversion is around 22%. That's 4–5 events lost per month due to slow response. Average MICE ticket: €8,000–18,000. Lost opportunity: between €32,000 and €90,000 per month.
Intangible cost
A sales team that spends the day copy-pasting Excel burns out. They leave. You hire another, takes 3 months to reach 100%. Onboarding is another open wound.
The comparison
A Pro plan on Cotiza costs €199/month. Resort plan is €399. Even if it only saves you 1.5 hours per RFP, you're getting more than 10× the monthly price back. And that's excluding the RFPs you used to lose and now do answer.
Think of it this way: 6 hours → 4 minutes. That's the difference between a team that reaches month-end exhausted and one that reaches its targets.