Why a Real Glossary Matters

Hotel revenue management has accumulated decades of jargon. STR, HSMAI, Cornell, and EHL Hospitality Insights have published partial glossaries, but most are either chain-oriented (assuming corporate brand structures) or research-oriented (academic definitions that do not match operational use). This glossary defines the 80+ terms an independent hotel operator must understand in 2026, with operational definitions and links to deeper context where useful.

A — Core Performance Metrics

ADR (Average Daily Rate): Total room revenue divided by total rooms sold. Excludes complimentary rooms. Always quoted exclusive of taxes; sometimes inclusive of breakfast (clarify with comp set).
ARI (Availability, Rates, Inventory): The three data feeds a channel manager pushes to OTAs. Sync issues across these three feeds are the most common source of parity problems.
Available Rooms: Total rooms in the property minus rooms out of order (OOO) for the period. The denominator for occupancy.
Average Length of Stay (ALOS): Total room nights divided by total reservations. A useful diagnostic — short ALOS during compression dates suggests displacement risk.

B — Booking and Distribution Terms

BAR (Best Available Rate): The lowest non-restricted rate the property publishes for a given date and room type. The reference rate against which other rate plans are constructed.
BOB (Business On the Books): Confirmed reservations not yet arrived. Used in pace and forecast calculations.
Booking Engine: The software on the hotel's website that processes direct bookings. Conversion rate is a critical metric (typical 1-3%, target 3-5%).
Booking Pace: The rate at which reservations are arriving, typically tracked weekly versus same-period last year.
Booking Window: The number of days between when a booking is made and when the stay begins. Different segments have different typical windows.

C — Channel and Cancellation Terms

Cancellation Rate: Reservations cancelled divided by total reservations. Varies dramatically by channel (Booking.com flexible: 25-35%; Expedia non-refundable: 5-10%).
Channel Manager: Software that synchronises rates, availability, and restrictions across multiple distribution channels (OTAs, GDS, booking engine). Examples: SiteMinder, STAAH, RateGain, MyAllocator.
Channel Mix: The percentage of bookings from each distribution channel. Critical for understanding net contribution.
Closed to Arrival (CTA): A restriction preventing new arrivals on a specific date — typically used to protect compression dates from short stays.
Closed to Departure (CTD): A restriction preventing departures on a specific date — less commonly used but can protect departure-day inventory.
Comp Set (Competitive Set): The group of competing properties used for benchmarking. Should reflect substitutability for guests, not just nearby location.
Compression: Periods when demand exceeds normal capacity, allowing higher pricing. Often associated with events, holidays, or destination-specific peak periods.

D — Demand and Distribution Terms

DBR (Daily Business Review): The daily revenue meeting where pickup, pace, restrictions, and rate decisions are reviewed.
Demand Sensing: The practice of detecting demand changes early through internal pace and external signals (events, weather, search interest, competitor rates).
Direct Booking: Reservation made directly with the hotel — through the website, phone, walk-in, or email — without an intermediary commission.
Displacement: When accepting a low-rate booking prevents the sale of a higher-rate booking that would have arrived. Particularly relevant for group acceptance decisions.
Distribution Cost: The total cost of acquiring a booking, including OTA commission, GDS fees, payment processing, marketing attribution, and channel manager subscription.
DOA (Daily Operations Audit): Less standardised; sometimes used as the rate-restriction audit before opening daily distribution.
DRB (Daily Revenue Briefing): Used interchangeably with DBR in some properties.

E — Economics and Effectiveness

Elasticity (Price): The percentage change in demand from a percentage change in price. High elasticity means demand responds strongly to price changes.
Expected Pace: The booking pace the hotel anticipates for a given lead time, typically derived from historical patterns.
Extended Stay: Stays of 7+ nights. Often priced at a discount per-night basis but with higher gross contribution.

F — Forecasting and Fences

Fence (Rate Fence): A condition that distinguishes rate plans — advance purchase, non-refundable, member-only, package, length-of-stay. Fences allow price discrimination without rate parity violations.
Forecast (Demand Forecast): Projection of expected demand at the property, room-type, segment, or channel level.
Forecast Error: The difference between forecast and actual, typically expressed as MAPE (Mean Absolute Percentage Error). Below 10% at 30 days out is good for boutique scale.

G — Group and GOPPAR

GDS (Global Distribution System): Distribution networks (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport) primarily serving corporate travel agents. Less relevant for boutique hotels but still meaningful for business-heavy properties.
GOPPAR (Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room): Gross operating profit divided by available rooms. Includes F&B, ancillary, and operational costs — a more complete profitability measure than RevPAR.
Group Booking: A reservation for multiple rooms typically contracted under a single agreement, often with negotiated rates and attrition clauses.

H — Hotel-Specific

House Limit: The maximum daily occupancy the property accepts, sometimes set below 100% to maintain service quality.
Housekeeping Hold: Inventory blocked for cleaning that may be released back to availability.

I — Inventory

Inventory: Available rooms by date and room type.
Independent Hotel: A property not affiliated with a major brand. Approximately 60% of European hotel rooms are independently operated.

L — Length of Stay

Length of Stay (LOS): Number of nights per reservation.
LOS Restriction: Minimum or maximum length of stay required for booking on certain dates. Used to protect compression dates from short-stay displacement.
Lead Time: Synonym for booking window.

M — Market Segmentation

Market Segment: A category of demand based on guest type, purpose, channel, or rate plan. Common segments: transient leisure, transient corporate, group, contract, package.
Market Penetration Index (MPI): Property occupancy divided by comp-set occupancy. 100 = fair share; >100 = above fair share.
Metasearch: Comparison engines (Google Hotel Ads, Trivago, Kayak, TripAdvisor) that show prices from OTAs and direct channels side-by-side.

N — Net Metrics

NetRevPAR: RevPAR adjusted for distribution costs (commissions, fees). A more accurate profitability measure than RevPAR.
NetADR: ADR adjusted for distribution cost.
NRG (Net Revenue Generated): Total revenue net of commissions and distribution costs.

O — Occupancy and OTAs

Occupancy: Rooms sold divided by available rooms. Always quoted as a percentage.
OTA (Online Travel Agency): Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com, Agoda, and similar third-party booking platforms. Typically charge 15-25% commission.
Open Pricing: A pricing approach where each rate plan, length of stay, and channel can have an independent rate decision, not tied to BAR multipliers.
Override: A manual adjustment to an automated pricing recommendation.

P — Pace, Parity, and Performance

Pace: The cumulative bookings on the books for a future date as of a given lead time. "Pace ahead" means more bookings than expected; "pace behind" means fewer.
Pickup: Net new bookings added in a given period (typically a week). The change in pace.
Parity (Rate Parity): The contractual obligation to offer the same rate across all distribution channels.
PMS (Property Management System): The core hotel software handling reservations, check-in, billing, and operational data. Examples: Opera, Mews, Cloudbeds, Stayntouch, Apaleo.

R — Rates, RGI, and RevPAR

Rate Ladder: The published structure of rate plans — BAR, advance purchase, member, package, group — with their relationships defined.
Rate Plan: A specific saleable product (e.g., BAR with breakfast included, advance purchase non-refundable).
RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Room): Room revenue divided by available rooms. The most-cited single metric in hospitality. Equivalent to ADR multiplied by occupancy.
RGI (Revenue Generation Index): Property RevPAR divided by comp-set RevPAR. 100 = fair share; >100 = outperforming.
RMS (Revenue Management System): Software that recommends pricing and inventory decisions based on demand forecasts. Examples: Duetto, IDeaS G3, Atomize, RoomPriceGenie, Pace, Lybra.

S — Segmentation and STR

STR (Smith Travel Research): The benchmark provider for hotel performance data, particularly for comp-set comparison. Now part of CoStar Group.
Stop Sell: Closing inventory on a specific channel or date.

T — Total Revenue

TRevPAR (Total Revenue Per Available Room): Total revenue (rooms + F&B + ancillary) divided by available rooms. A more complete profitability measure.
Transient: Individual reservations as opposed to group business.

U — Upsell and Unconstrained Demand

Unconstrained Demand: The demand that would have arrived if the property had unlimited inventory and no restrictions. The theoretical baseline for forecasting.
Upsell: Selling a higher-tier product (room category, package) than originally booked.

V — Variable Cost

Variable Cost Per Occupied Room (VCPOR): The marginal cost of selling one more room — cleaning, amenities, breakfast, payment processing. Critical for floor-rate calculations.

W — Walk-In and Wholesale

Walk-In: A guest who arrives without a reservation. Increasingly rare but operationally important when it occurs.
Wholesale (Wholesaler): Distribution channel selling rooms in bulk to tour operators. Typically opaque pricing.

Y — Yield and Yield Management

Yield: Achieved revenue as a percentage of potential revenue.
Yield Management: The original term for revenue management, focused on rate and inventory optimisation. Now considered a subset of broader revenue management.

Why This Glossary Matters For 2026

Three terms — NetRevPAR, GOPPAR, and TRevPAR — are increasingly replacing simple RevPAR as the dominant performance metrics in 2026 hospitality discussions. The shift reflects the industry's recognition that distribution costs and total revenue (rooms plus F&B plus ancillary) matter more than headline room revenue. STR, HSMAI, and Cornell research have all moved toward emphasising these more complete metrics in benchmarking work.

Independent hotel operators who can speak fluently across this vocabulary are at a meaningful negotiating advantage with vendors, advisors, and OTA contract managers. The glossary is the first step; the operating playbooks that apply these terms are the second.

Disclaimer

This glossary references publicly available STR, HSMAI, Cornell, EHL Hospitality Insights, PhocusWire, Skift Research, and Hotelnewsresource definitions. Trademark references belong to their respective owners. This is industry research, not investment, contractual, or vendor-selection advice.

glossaryrevenue managementKPIRevPARADRoccupancyhotel terminology

Share this article

Independent Hotel Revenue Management Glossary 2026: 80+ Terms RM Operators Must Know