Hotel Houdini: How Gamemasters Escape Solutions Is Transforming Unused Resort Space into Pure Revenue Magic
Pools, bars, and beaches are standard. Immersive experiences are the new advantage — and the hotel keeps the revenue.
Most hotels and resorts are sitting on forgotten meeting rooms, idle basements, and obsolete attraction spaces that do little more than occupy expensive square footage. For years, these areas have been treated as unavoidable overhead. Laura Hawkins, founder of Gamemasters Escape Solutions and the woman some already call the Hotel Houdini, saw something different: an underused asset with real revenue potential.
Gamemasters Escape Solutions converts those overlooked corners into fully custom, turnkey escape rooms that guests actually want to book — and that regularly sell out.
From obsession to opportunity
Laura didn’t begin with the goal of entering the hotel industry. She started an escape room company. In 2014, while traveling through Europe with her husband and daughter, the family played escape rooms in Dublin, Athens, and Paris. By the time they returned to Canada, they were hooked. They opened their own rooms, expanded rapidly, and eventually realized the bigger opportunity was not running more locations themselves — it was installing the experience inside places that already had the guests.
Enticing guests to stay (and spend) on-property
Traditional entertainment operators have to work hard to attract customers. Hotels already have the guests, the concierge desks, and the built-in audience. What many properties still lack is an on-site attraction compelling enough to pull people out of their rooms and keep discretionary spending on the property.
Once guests check in, a surprising number prefer not to leave. They want safety, convenience, and quality entertainment without the headache of going off-site. An immersive escape room meets that preference directly.
Gamemasters delivers the experience as a true turnkey solution: the company designs the rooms, installs them, trains the staff, and hands over a ready-to-run attraction. The hotel keeps the revenue.
The company designs the rooms, installs them, and trains the staff. The hotel keeps the revenue.
Proven results
The clearest example sits inside Atlantis Paradise Island in the Bahamas. There, Gamemasters converted a long-idle children’s attraction into two themed rooms operating as Lost City Escapes — Poseidon’s Promise and Blackbeard’s Brig. Running with a lean staff of roughly six people, the rooms have consistently sold out — even during periods of softer hotel occupancy — and generated substantial monthly revenue.
An earlier installation at a Virginia resort followed a similar path. The property began with one room, quickly expanded to three after seeing strong demand, and reached full return on investment in four to seven months. Across installations, some hotels are seeing monthly returns in the $30,000 to $60,000 range.
A meaningful edge for families and corporate groups
When every resort in the market offers a pool, a bar, and a beach, an escape room can become a genuine differentiator:
- Multi-generational appeal — families finally have a shared on-property activity everyone can enjoy together.
- Corporate advantage — groups get a memorable team-building experience instead of another breakout session.
- Turnkey execution — the hotel keeps the revenue while the installation is delivered fully ready to run.
The ideal footprint is roughly 1,500 square feet for two rooms. The space does not need to be glamorous — a forgotten meeting room, former office, or underperforming basement can work. Staffing stays deliberately light, typically one person per active room. Fully installed rooms range from $75,000 to $120,000 depending on the level of customization, much like buying a car: you can choose a more introductory model or something more elaborate. Custom rooms can also incorporate local flavour, history, or legends.
Seeing the property differently
The most sophisticated operators no longer limit revenue management to guestroom rates. They look at every square foot of the building. Underutilized space is not automatically dead weight — it can become a high-performing asset.
Laura Hawkins is not simply installing escape rooms. She is offering hotels a different way to look at the space they already own. That forgotten meeting room or underperforming basement may not be lost square footage after all. It may be an engine for recurring revenue that was sitting there the entire time.
If she continues turning those overlooked corners into attractions that guests consistently book, the nickname is likely to stick.
Hotel Houdini.
Because the real trick is not getting guests to escape. It is getting hotels to finally see what they have been sitting on all along.Interested in learning more?
See the rooms. Run the numbers.
Visit Gamemasters Escape Solutions to explore installations, see real examples, and try the interactive ROI calculator that shows what this could generate at your property.