What Hotel Consulting From A Standards Body Looks Like
A good hotel consultant leaves a property doing three things better than before: telling guests who travel with their dogs the truth before they book, delivering the same welcome on every shift, and earning from the guest the dog arrives with. Everything we do serves those three outcomes. We start with an independent measure of what your guests are actually told, scored against the Roch Dog Friendly Standard with the evidence quoted and set against the hotels you compete with. From there the work is practical: rewrite the policy, fix the fee, open the spaces that matter, train the team and tell the market.
Guests still type pet-friendly into a search box, and we make sure they find you when they do. But the phrase has no definition and no verification, and travellers have learned that: in the United States interest in pet friendly hotel fell 19 percent between 2022 and 2025 while dog friendly hotel grew. The hotels that win those guests say exactly what the dog gets and where the dog can go, before booking.
Where To Start
- Know where you stand. The Mystery Shopper Audit hears what your guests are told, and Certification Advisory takes the grade from C to A.
- Get the details right. Operational Design shapes the bowl, the bed, the dog menu, the walk and the sitter; Staff Training makes it hold on every shift.
- Sell it and scale it. Pet Fees & Commercial Strategy prices the welcome, Content & Marketing says it, and Group Programmes hold one standard across a portfolio.
- The full detail of each, with engagement lengths, deliverables, who does the work and how it is measured, is on Services.
Who We Work With
Four and five star hotels, independent and branded, and the groups and brands that run them. The excellent independent that knows it is the best dog friendly hotel in its market and cannot yet prove it. The property one grade short, competing with bigger flags. The group whose portfolio runs from an A+ to a hotel that turns dogs away. There is a page for each on Who We Help. If you are prepared to change operations rather than only marketing, we should talk.
The Grade Cannot Be Bought
Certification under the Roch Dog Friendly Standard is free for every hotel, and no hotel can pay to change its grade. A property that hires us can still be graded C, and a property that never speaks to us is still assessed. That separation is what makes the grade worth having, and it is why our advice is worth taking: we are paid to close the gap, never to declare it closed.
Questions
Asked And Answered
What does a pet-friendly hotel consultant do?
A pet-friendly hotel consultant assesses how a hotel actually treats guests travelling with dogs, then fixes what falls short: the pet policy, the fee, access to shared spaces, amenities, staff training and marketing. We do it against the published Roch Dog Friendly Standard, so the result is measured rather than asserted.
How much revenue can a pet-friendly hotel earn from dog owners?
On our published model, a 250 room hotel at a $350 average daily rate and 70 percent occupancy earns about $1.88 million a year in incremental revenue from a credible dog friendly programme, from occupancy, a measured $17.41 nightly rate premium and a fair fee, before any on-property spend is counted. It is a model, not a promise. The programme itself costs $25,000 to $50,000 one-off.
Is pet-friendly the same as dog friendly?
Not in practice. Pet-friendly is an undefined label that guests have learned to distrust, and most hotels using it accept only dogs. Dog friendly, as we define it, is a measurable standard a hotel either meets or does not. We make sure guests searching either phrase find you, and that what they find is specific.
Do you certify hotels?
Certification is free for every hotel at rochcertification.com and the grade cannot be bought. Consulting is separate: it is the work of raising the grade and turning it into revenue.
Do you work outside the United States?
Yes. The standard applies the same way in every one of the 56 countries we assess in, and Kali, our AI canine concierge, works in every major language.
Begin
Talk To Us About Your Hotel
Tell us which property you run and what you want it to be for the guest with a dog. We will tell you where we would start.
Talk To Us About Your Hotel