Hotel Occupancy Rate Calculator

Occupancy rate is the share of your available rooms that you sold in a given period. STR (CoStar) defines it as the "Percentage of available rooms sold during a specified time period" and calculates it by dividing rooms sold by rooms available. As a percentage:

Occupancy = Rooms sold ÷ Rooms available × 100

Rooms available, also called room supply, is the number of rooms in the hotel multiplied by the number of days in the period. STR's own example: 100 rooms × 31 days gives a room supply of 3,100 for the month. Rooms sold is the number of rooms sold in the period and, in STR's definition, excludes complimentary rooms.

This is room occupancy. Bed or guest occupancy is a different measure, and this calculator does not compute it.

1. Enter Rooms sold: the rooms you sold in the period, without complimentary rooms.
2. Enter Rooms in the hotel and Days in the period, for example 30 for a 30-day month. The calculator multiplies them to get rooms available.
3. If you already know your room supply, click Enter rooms available directly. The two room fields are replaced by one field, Rooms available.
4. Optionally, enter Competitive set occupancy (%) for the same period to get your Occupancy Index (MPI).
5. Read the results. They update as you type once the required fields are valid. Click Calculate to see which fields are missing or invalid.
6. Click Try an example to load the numbers from the example below, or Clear to start again.

You can type numbers with or without thousands separators. Rooms sold cannot be more than rooms available: if it is, the calculator shows an error. There is no currency field, because occupancy counts rooms, not money. Percentages and the index are shown with one decimal.

The calculator shows your Occupancy rate with the formula written out in your own numbers, for example "Occupancy = Rooms sold ÷ Rooms available × 100 = 73.0%". It also shows Rooms not sold, which is rooms available minus rooms sold. A room left empty on a night cannot be sold later, so this is supply you lost in that period.

Is your occupancy good? There is no single good occupancy rate for a hotel. It depends on your hotel, the season and your market. Judge the result against your own history, the same period last year, your budget and your competitive set. The last comparison is what the Occupancy Index (MPI) gives you. STR puts it this way: "If all things are equal, a property's Occ Index or MPI is 100", which was historically described as "fair share".

• Above 100: you sold a larger share of your rooms than the competitive set sold of theirs, more than your fair share.
• At 100: you took exactly your fair share of the group's occupancy.
• Below 100: you took less than the expected share of the group's occupancy performance.

Annual occupancy: set Days in the period to 365, or 366 in a leap year, and enter the rooms sold for the whole year. If your room count changed during the year, add up the rooms sold of all months, divide by the sum of rooms available of all months and multiply by 100. You can type that sum through Enter rooms available directly.

• Counting complimentary rooms as sold: STR's definition of rooms sold excludes them. Including them raises occupancy without any sale behind it.
• Using the wrong number of days: rooms available must use the actual days in the period. A 31-day month entered as 30 days understates supply and overstates occupancy.
• Averaging monthly percentages: a simple average of monthly occupancy rates can differ from the true average when months have different rooms available, because of different day counts or room counts. Add up rooms sold and rooms available for all months, then divide.
• Changing what counts as available: decide once how you treat rooms you cannot sell for a while, check STR's Data Reporting Guidelines for their specific rules, and apply the same treatment in every period you compare.
• Comparing different periods: the competitive set occupancy must cover the same dates as your own figure, or the MPI is not a like-for-like comparison.

Occupancy counts rooms and ignores price. A hotel can raise occupancy by cutting rates and end up with less room revenue, or sell fewer rooms at higher rates and earn more. To see both sides, pair occupancy with the rate you achieved:

• ADR = Room revenue ÷ Rooms sold: the average rate paid for rooms sold. Work it out with the ADR calculator.
• RevPAR = Room revenue ÷ Rooms available: this also equals ADR × Occupancy, so it combines rate and volume in one figure. Work it out with the RevPAR calculator.

The index versions follow the same logic as MPI: the Average Rate Index (ARI) compares your ADR with the group's, and the RevPAR Index (RGI) compares your RevPAR. To choose the hotels in your competitive set, see the competitive set analysis guide. For how to build a local comparison, read how to build a city occupancy benchmark.