Most leisure businesses treat refurbishment as a product investment. It pays back over time because the place is better. That's true, but it leaves the commercial questions unanswered: which sites, how much price, and for how long.

What we've found

• Investment can make customers less sensitive to price for a while. That opens a window to charge more.
• The window closes. As prices rise, sensitivity drifts back towards where it started.
• The same investment lands differently from site to site, even between sites that look alike on paper. In some the headroom gets used up quickly. In others it holds for much longer.

Why the usual analysis misses it

Most refurbishment business cases compare before and after. That tells you whether the investment paid back, not how the effect builds and fades. To get at that you need to track each site over several years, allow for lags, and put a confidence range on every estimate so you know how far to trust it.

It's also hard to separate the effect of the investment from why a site was picked for it, or from the price rise that came with it. That's the part we're working on now.

Questions worth asking

• Which of your sites have pricing headroom after investment, and which don't?
• How long does the window stay open?
• Can you tell whether a planned investment will work in a site before you spend the money?