A competing hotel drops its rate by $15, and suddenly everyone's watching. Check the dates. Check the booking pace. Check how many rooms are still sitting empty. Before long, someone asks the inevitable question: Should we match? It's an understandable reaction. Rates are easy to compare, travelers can see their options side by side, and nobody wants to lose a
It looks like next Saturday at your hotel will be quiet. Then three bookings arrive before breakfast. Do you raise the rate, wait for more, or check what the hotel down the road is charging? Hotel pricing gets easier when you know which signals that could influence your rates matter. Here's how to read changing demand, question recommendations, and focus
RGI, or Revenue Generation Index, measures your hotel's RevPAR against the average RevPAR of your competitive set, market, or submarket. It tells you whether you are winning or losing revenue share in your market, which absolute RevPAR alone cannot show. The number only becomes useful when the competitive set behind it is honest. Key Takeaways: Revenue Generation Index compares
Hotel algorithmic pricing antitrust risk is real but specific. It arises when pricing software that competing hotels share stops informing each property's rates and starts coordinating them. Using a revenue management system (RMS) is lawful, yet federal appeals courts now disagree on where that line sits, so how you feed and govern your tool decides your exposure. Key Takeaways:
Employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS) is a workforce metric that measures how willing employees are to recommend your hotel as a place to work. It gives hotel managers a fast signal of employee sentiment, but the score becomes useful only when you connect it to departmental feedback, retention, and management action. Key Takeaways: eNPS measures employee advocacy on one
Fall 2026 comes with a mixed bag of signals. Corporate travel confidence has wobbled, leisure travelers are booking anyway, and a run of stadium shows and arena tours is about to hand some hotels their best weeks of the year. Here's what the numbers actually say, and how you can turn all that shifting signal into a pricing strategy that
Average Rate Index (ARI) compares your hotel's Average Daily Rate (ADR) with an aggregated competitive benchmark. It shows whether you are pricing above or below the market, but a higher ARI is only valuable when the occupancy trade-off still produces strong Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR). Key Takeaways: ARI scores your ADR against your competitive set, where 100 means
Market Penetration Index (MPI) measures how your hotel's occupancy performs against a competitive set, market, or submarket. An MPI above 100 means your property is capturing more than its expected occupancy share, but the number only becomes commercially useful when you read it alongside rate, RevPAR, and competitive-set quality. Key Takeaways: MPI compares your hotel's occupancy with its competitive
RevPAM (Revenue per Available Square Meter) measures the revenue each square meter of hotel space generates, from meeting rooms and restaurants to the lobby and the parking deck. It is important to calculate because RevPAR says nothing about the parts of your building that aren't guest rooms, and those parts still carry energy, labor, and debt. Key Takeaways: RevPAM
Average Length of Stay (ALOS) is the average number of nights represented by each hotel stay during a defined period. It matters because stay duration changes how inventory is consumed and how frequently rooms turn over, so two hotels with identical occupancy can have very different operating and revenue patterns. Key Takeaways: ALOS measures nights per reservation, not nights
Cost per Occupied Room (CPOR) measures the average operating cost associated with each hotel room sold. It helps you determine whether room revenue is being converted efficiently into profit, rather than being absorbed by labor, supplies, laundry, amenities, utilities, and other rooms-department costs. Key Takeaways: CPOR measures what servicing one sold room costs, which revenue metrics like RevPAR never
Guest Acquisition Cost (GAC), commonly called Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), is the total cost a hotel spends to win a booking or a guest, including commissions, advertising, booking fees, and incentives. It matters because room revenue growth means little when the cost of buying that demand climbs faster. Most properties measure only part of it. Key Takeaways: Guest acquisition
Dynamic pricing is often described as though it were one technique. It is not. It is a family of very different decisions that happen to share a principle: the price of a perishable or competitive product should reflect current demand rather than a number set months ago. The mechanics look nothing alike across sectors. A revenue manager moving a rate
Rate shopping is the practice of collecting the published rates of competing hotels across the channels where guests actually book, so that pricing decisions rest on the live market rather than on last year's assumptions. Nearly every revenue management system now includes it, and nearly every revenue manager has at some point been shown a competitor rate that turned out
Flexible schedules are changing how hotels manage arrivals and departures. Guests increasingly expect options that align with flights, meetings, and personal plans. This shift requires operational adjustments that maintain service quality while unlocking additional revenue streams. Why Flexible Timings Are Now Part of the Guest Experience Industry data shows rising demand for adaptable check-in and check-out. A Statista Report from
Question for Our Revenue Management Expert Panel In markets where last-minute rates are often dropped, what pricing strategy will help keep hotels competitive without jeopardising long-term revenue goals? (Question by Mariska van Heemskerk) Our Revenue Management Expert Panel Tamie Matthews - Revenue, Sales & Marketing Consultant, RevenYou Massimiliano Terzulli - International Business
Ancillary revenue describes earnings that originate from the sale of products or services besides your primary offering. In the case of hotels, this means products and services beyond the sale of hotel rooms. For hotels, ancillary revenue is important because it provides additional income. When ancillary services are of a high standard, a hotel can extract more revenue from each
Question for Our Revenue Management Expert Panel What analysis should hotels use to evaluate pricing relative to perceived value and that of competitors? How might this influence their market positioning strategy? (Question by Mariska van Heemskerk) Our Revenue Management Expert Panel Mariska van Heemskerk - Owner, Revenue Management Works Massimiliano Terzulli -