Revenue Management Terms
Total room revenue divided by total rooms sold. If a hotel sold 60 rooms and generated INR 3,00,000, the ADR is INR 5,000. It measures rate performance only, not how many rooms were occupied. A hotel can have a strong ADR and still underperform on revenue if occupancy is low.
ADR multiplied by occupancy percentage. The primary measure of overall room revenue performance because it captures both rate and volume in one number. Two hotels with identical ADR can have very different RevPARs if their occupancy differs. It is the benchmark most used in hotel performance comparisons.
Total gross operating profit divided by available rooms. Unlike RevPAR, which only measures revenue, GOPPAR deducts all operating costs before calculating the per-room figure. It is the profitability metric that RevPAR cannot show. A hotel with strong RevPAR and weak GOPPAR is generating revenue but not retaining it.
RevPAR minus distribution costs. If a hotel has a RevPAR of INR 3,500 but paid an average INR 560 per room in OTA commissions to generate it, NRevPAR is INR 2,940. It shows how much room revenue actually reaches the hotel after paying for the channels used to acquire those bookings.
All hotel revenue including rooms, food and beverage, spa, events, and ancillary departments, divided by available rooms. Most relevant for full-service hotels and resorts where non-room revenue is a meaningful share of total commercial performance.
The lowest publicly available room rate on any given date, with no restrictions attached. All other rate types, packages, and promotional pricing are typically built as a percentage above or below BAR. It is the reference point for the entire rate structure.
OTA and Distribution Terms
Any third-party platform that sells hotel rooms to guests and charges the hotel a commission per booking. In Indian markets, Booking.com, MakeMyTrip, Agoda, Goibibo, and Expedia are the five primary OTAs. Commission typically runs between 12 and 22% of the booking value.
Maintaining the same publicly available room rate across all distribution channels. Most OTA contracts require it. Broad parity means the same rate everywhere. Narrow parity, increasingly common, requires rate consistency across OTAs but may allow the hotel to offer lower rates on its own direct channel.
Software that connects a hotel's property management system to multiple OTAs simultaneously, synchronising rates, availability, and reservations in real time. Without one, every rate change requires a separate login to each OTA extranet. With one, a single rate change updates all connected channels within seconds.
The group of hotels a property benchmarks against for pricing, occupancy, and performance comparison. OTAs also use comp set data algorithmically to assess whether a hotel's rates are competitive relative to similar properties in the same market.
A worldwide reservation network that distributes hotel rates to corporate booking tools and travel agencies. Amadeus, Sabre, and Galileo are the major platforms. Relevant primarily for business hotels with significant corporate demand from companies using managed travel programmes.
Platforms like Google Hotel Ads, Trivago, and Kayak that aggregate hotel rates from multiple OTAs and the hotel's own booking engine side by side. Guests see all rates in one view and choose where to book. Different from OTAs in that metasearch platforms direct traffic rather than processing the transaction themselves.
Booking and Demand Terms
The number of days between when a booking is made and the arrival date. Business travellers typically book within 7 days. Domestic Indian leisure guests typically book 2 to 4 weeks out. Families planning school holidays may book 4 to 8 weeks ahead. Knowing the lead time pattern for each segment determines when rate strategy should shift.
The number of new bookings received for a specific future date within a defined window, usually the past 7 days. Pickup analysis tells the revenue manager whether a date is filling faster or slower than the historical pattern for that same date in prior years.
How the current pickup rate compares to the historical pattern for the same dates in prior years. Pace ahead means bookings are arriving faster than last year. Pace behind means slower. Pace is the primary short-term signal for whether to hold or adjust rates.
The percentage of bookings that are cancelled before the arrival date. High cancellation rates directly affect OTA ranking and signal problems with policy design, rate plan structure, or the gap between listing promises and guest expectations.
Operations Terms
A benchmarking metric that compares a hotel's occupancy to the average occupancy of its comp set. An MPI above 100 means the hotel is capturing more than its fair share of available demand. Below 100 means the comp set is outperforming on occupancy.
Compares a hotel's RevPAR to the average RevPAR of its comp set. An RGI above 100 means the hotel is generating more revenue per available room than the competitive average. The combination of MPI and RGI shows whether performance gaps come from occupancy, rate, or both.
The central software system that manages reservations, check-in and checkout, room assignments, billing, and reporting for a hotel. Every other technology in the hotel stack, from the channel manager to the booking engine to the RMS, connects to the PMS as the source of record for all reservation data.
Software that analyses demand signals, competitive rates, and historical data to generate pricing recommendations. Basic systems produce suggested rates for the revenue manager to approve. Advanced systems push rate changes directly to the channel manager without requiring manual review.
Accepting more reservations than the total number of available rooms, typically to account for expected cancellations and no-shows. When managed correctly it maximises occupancy. When miscalculated, it requires walking guests to alternative properties, which is operationally expensive and reputationally damaging.
A room booking for daytime hours only, without an overnight stay. Common at airport hotels, conference properties, and transit locations where guests need a room for a few hours between a morning checkout and an evening flight, or during a long layover.
ADR and RevPAR are the two that get mixed up most often. ADR is what the rooms that sold went for. RevPAR accounts for the rooms that didn't sell at all. A sold-out hotel and a half-empty hotel can have the same ADR. They cannot have the same RevPAR. Always read both together.
