Example output — produced by a real run of this template on sample inputs. Sample inputs: brief = go/no-go report on adding a sauna and spa treatment room to a 12-room Lake District boutique hotel · audience = the owners

Go/No-Go Report: Adding a Sauna and Spa Treatment Room

Summary

We cannot yet issue a clean go or no-go. The demand case is directionally sound — Lake District boutique hotels routinely offer spa access, and comparable resort pricing suggests £35 per person as a workable proxy for entry-level access — but the cost, regulatory, staffing, and returns evidence needed to size the investment simply isn't available from research alone. Our recommendation is conditional go: proceed to obtain the six pieces of missing information below before committing capital. The single biggest risk is that the owners could commit to a build without knowing its capital cost, its regulatory status, or its staffing cost — any one of which could change the economics materially.

The proposition

This report assesses adding:

• One sauna — assumed to be a mid-size electric sauna (4–6 person capacity) unless the owners specify otherwise. (Assumption: sauna type and size not stated in the brief.)
• One spa treatment room — assumed to be a single room, staffed by one part-time or freelance therapist rather than a full-time in-house employee, in proportion to a 12-room property. (Assumption: treatment scope and staffing model not stated in the brief.)
• Location within existing footprint — the report treats this as a fit-out within the hotel's current building rather than a new extension, pending confirmation.
• Out of scope: a pool, a second treatment room, or a multi-facility "thermal journey" of the kind larger resorts offer.

These are working assumptions to keep the analysis proportionate to a 12-room hotel. They should be confirmed or corrected before any figures below are relied upon.

Market case — demand exists, but local pricing evidence is thin

What we know: Lake District spa provision follows three models among comparable properties:

• Some hotels (Armathwaite Hall, Brimstone Hotel, Ambleside Salutation) include full spa access in every room rate at no extra charge.
• Others (Lodore Falls, Swan Hotel Newby Bridge) include access only for suite-category guests, charging standard-room guests £35 per person for the same access.
• A minority (Netherwood, Appleby Manor) charge all guests regardless of room type.

(Source: Lake District Spas guide on included vs. extra access.)

Proxy, not a like-for-like figure: The £35/person Lodore Falls charge is our best available proxy for entry-level spa access pricing, but it comes from a larger resort with a full "thermal journey" (pools, sauna, steam cabin) rather than a boutique 12-room property offering a single sauna and treatment room. Boutique pricing could run higher (scarcity/exclusivity) or lower (fewer facilities) — we don't have a boutique-specific figure to anchor on.

Gap — sauna-only, non-resident access: No source confirms that any Lake District hotel sells sauna-only access to day-visitors separately from full spa access. This matters directly for this proposition, since a single sauna without a wider "journey" is the exact product being considered. This is a genuine unknown, not an assumption we can safely fill.

Opinion (labelled): We think day-visitor revenue is worth pursuing as a secondary stream, given a 12-room hotel likely needs it to help justify the investment — but this is our judgement, not a researched fact, and the owners should confirm whether they want non-resident access in scope at all before it's built into the pricing model.

Cost and delivery — capital cost and regulatory status are both unknown

Capital cost: Not found. No source in this research provided a UK cost range for installing a small hotel sauna (traditional or infrared) or fitting out a single spa treatment room. This is a critical gap — without it, no return-on-investment calculation is credible. Closing it requires direct quotes (see action list below), not further desk research.

Planning and building regulations: Not found. No source addressed planning permission, building regulations, or listed-building constraints for adding a sauna/wet area within the Lake District National Park. Given that the National Park has stringent planning controls and many hotel buildings in the area are listed, this is a live risk that must be resolved with the hotel's own architect or surveyor and, if relevant, the Lake District National Park Authority — not assumed away.

Lead time and disruption: Not addressed in research; dependent on the answers above.

Operating model and returns — cannot be modelled without missing inputs

Staffing cost: Not found. No source gave a day-rate or employment cost for a qualified spa therapist in the North West/Cumbria, nor confirmed or ruled out a recruitment shortage in rural tourism areas. Rural recruitment shortages are common across UK hospitality as a general pattern — but we have no Cumbria-specific evidence to cite, so we flag this as an open question rather than a stated fact.

Running costs: Not found. No source addressed utilities, servicing, or insurance costs for a small hotel sauna.

Occupancy/ADR uplift: Not found. No published case study or industry benchmark on occupancy or ADR uplift for UK boutique hotels after adding wellness facilities was located in this research.

Consequence: With capital cost, staffing cost, running cost, and uplift benchmark all unresolved, we cannot produce a payback period. Any figure offered here would be invented, not modelled — and the brief requires us to state that plainly rather than paper over it with a placeholder number.

Risks and dependencies

• Regulatory risk — unconfirmed planning/listed-building status could block, delay, or add cost to the build.
• Staffing risk — general rural recruitment pressure is a known pattern in UK hospitality; we don't have Cumbria/spa-specific evidence either way, so treat therapist availability as unverified rather than assumed available.
• Demand risk — the £35/person proxy is drawn from a different type of property (larger resort, fuller facility set); local demand for a sauna-only offer to non-residents is unconfirmed.
• Cost-overrun risk — with no capital cost benchmark in hand, the owners have no baseline against which to judge whether contractor quotes are reasonable.

Recommendation and conditions

Verdict: conditional go. The direction of travel is favourable — spa provision is a normal, expected feature of comparable Lake District boutique hotels, and there's no evidence against demand — but the owners should not commit capital until the following are resolved. We recommend treating these as gating conditions, not optional follow-ups:

1. Get quotes. Obtain quotes from at least two sauna installers and one spa fit-out contractor for this specific building, to replace the missing capital-cost figure with a real one.
2. Confirm regulatory status. Ask the hotel's own architect or surveyor whether the intended space triggers planning permission or listed-building consent; escalate to the Lake District National Park Authority if needed.
3. Establish the baseline. Pull the hotel's own occupancy, ADR, and guest-mix data (leisure/business split, and any existing spa enquiry volume already tracked), to give the demand case a local anchor instead of resort-level proxies.
4. Check utilities capacity. Have the facilities manager confirm water, drainage, and power capacity for the proposed sauna location, especially if a wet (rather than dry/infrared) sauna is under consideration.
5. Test staffing supply. Speak to local freelance therapists or agencies to establish whether cover is realistically available before assuming a staffing model.
6. Set the threshold. Agree the capital budget ceiling and the payback period the owners consider acceptable — without this, "go" has no numeric finish line to aim at.

Once these six answers are in, the report's cost and returns sections can be rebuilt on real figures rather than proxies and gaps, and a firm go/no-go call becomes possible.

Assumptions

• House style guidance was not supplied for this run; we defaulted to British spelling, direct first-person-plural voice, and verdict-first headings per the playbook's placeholder example. This should be replaced with the owners' actual house style once available.
• Sauna type and size: treated as a single mid-size electric sauna (4–6 person), as this is the most common boutique-hotel choice — not confirmed by the brief.
• Treatment room scope: treated as one room with one part-time/freelance therapist, not a multi-treatment or in-house-employed model — not confirmed by the brief.
• Location: treated as a fit-out within the existing hotel footprint, not a new extension — not confirmed by the brief.
• Funding source (cash, loan, revenue-financed) is not stated; this report presents cost and return only, and leaves financing structure as a decision for the owners.
• No decision deadline was given; this report treats the decision as considered rather than urgent.
• Non-resident/day-visitor revenue is assumed in scope as a secondary stream, on the reasoning that a 12-room hotel likely needs it to help justify the investment — this is our judgement and should be confirmed or ruled out by the owners.