Reference
Plain-English definitions of the terms hotel-technology decisions actually hinge on. Each entry links into deeper coverage where it exists.
Card-issuer authentication protocol used to satisfy SCA requirements.
3D Secure (3DS, branded as Verified by Visa, Mastercard SecureCode, etc.) is the authentication protocol used by card issuers to satisfy SCA. 3DS 2 adds frictionless authentication for low-risk transactions and step-up authentication for higher-risk ones. Modern payment processors implement 3DS 2 automatically; older 3DS 1 is being phased out.
Average Daily Rate. Room revenue divided by number of rooms sold over a period.
ADR (Average Daily Rate) is the average rental income per occupied room for a given period. It is calculated as room revenue divided by rooms sold, and is one of the three core revenue-management metrics alongside occupancy and RevPAR. ADR rises when a property successfully shifts mix toward higher rate plans or runs effective dynamic pricing.
More: Revenue management for small hotels · PMS ROI calculator
See also: RevPAR , Occupancy , Dynamic Pricing
Software that handles repetitive guest questions via chat without human staff.
An AI concierge automates conversational responses to repetitive guest questions (pool hours, breakfast cutoff, late check-in) across web chat, SMS, WhatsApp, and email. Mature deployments at independent hotels typically deflect 60-75% of inbound guest messages by month three. The deflection rate ramps from roughly 40-50% in month one as the property-specific knowledge base fills in.
More: AI concierge implementation guide · Compare AI-concierge platforms
See also: Guest Messaging , Deflection Rate
The largest short-term rental marketplace, increasingly used by boutique hotels for select listings.
Airbnb began as a short-term rental marketplace but now lists boutique hotels under the "Hotels" category alongside whole-home rentals. Commissions are typically 14-16% (split between host and guest fees). For independent properties Airbnb is a meaningful incremental channel in leisure markets but rarely the largest single OTA contributor.
More: Airbnb tech stack for short-term rentals
See also: OTA , Channel Manager
Average Length of Stay. Total room nights divided by total bookings over a period.
ALOS (Average Length of Stay) is total room nights sold divided by total stays in a period. It is a structural metric: a hotel with a higher ALOS spreads the cost of acquisition and turnover (housekeeping, check-in) across more revenue-generating nights. Length-of-stay restrictions are the most direct lever revenue managers use to lift ALOS during high-demand windows.
Application Programming Interface. The contract by which two software systems exchange data.
An API (Application Programming Interface) is the formal mechanism by which one software system requests data or actions from another. In the hotel-tech context, API quality is the deciding factor in integration depth: a deep modern REST API exposes reservations, guest profiles, rates, and inventory with bidirectional updates and webhook callbacks. Legacy systems offering only periodic XML exports are integration-incapable for modern workflows.
See also: Webhook , PMS , Channel Manager
Availability, Rates, Inventory in channel-manager context, or Average Rate Index in STR/STAR context.
ARI has two meanings in hotel-tech. In channel-manager context, ARI = Availability, Rates, Inventory: the three feeds that hotels keep synchronized across direct and OTA channels. ARI mismatches are the underlying cause of most overbookings. In STR/STAR-Report context, ARI = Average Rate Index, a property's ADR divided by compset ADR and indexed to 100; an ARI of 105 means the property charges 5% above its compset average.
See also: Channel Manager , OTA , STAR Report , MPI , RGI
Best Available Rate. The lowest publicly bookable rate for a given date and room type.
BAR (Best Available Rate) is the lowest non-restricted, publicly bookable rate a property publishes for a date and room type. It anchors the rate fence below all special-rate plans (member rates, package rates, government rates). Rate parity clauses on most OTA contracts apply to BAR specifically; closed-user-group rates (loyalty members) typically fall outside that scope.
See also: Rate Parity , Dynamic Pricing
A wholesaler that aggregates and resells hotel inventory to other distribution partners.
A bedbank is a specific kind of wholesaler that aggregates inventory from many hotels and packages it for resale to retail OTAs and tour operators, often on a net-rate basis. Hotelbeds is the largest globally. Bedbank distribution is most relevant for properties in package-travel-heavy markets (Mediterranean leisure, Mexican resorts, Asia beach destinations).
See also: Wholesaler , OTA
The reservation widget on a hotel's direct website that converts visitors to bookings.
A booking engine is the software that powers reservations from a property's direct website (rather than from an OTA). It pulls live availability from the PMS, displays rate plans, processes payment, and writes the resulting booking back to the PMS. Conversion-rate differences between booking engines are material; a poor booking engine can lose 30-40% of would-be direct bookings to OTA channels.
More: Best booking engines for small hotels · Direct-booking strategies
See also: OTA , Direct Booking , PMS , Channel Manager
The time between when a booking is made and when the stay starts.
Booking window (or booking lead time) is the elapsed time between booking creation and check-in. Independent leisure properties typically see a bimodal distribution: a long window 4-12 weeks ahead and a short window inside 48 hours. The shape of the booking window curve drives dynamic-pricing strategy and last-minute channel choice.
See also: Dynamic Pricing , Channel Manager
The largest OTA by listing volume for independent properties globally.
Booking.com is the largest OTA for independent hotels by listing volume, with standard commissions in the 15-18% range depending on participation tier (the Preferred and Genius programs adjust commission for visibility). For most independent hotels, Booking.com plus the direct channel cover the majority of inbound demand.
More: How to reduce OTA fees
See also: OTA , Channel Manager
The contractual rules governing when a guest can cancel and what they are charged.
A cancellation policy defines the timing and financial consequences of a guest cancelling a reservation. Common shapes: flex (free cancellation up to 24-48 hours before arrival), non-refundable (no refund, typically priced 10-15% below flex), and peak/event (stricter windows, often 7-14 days). Cancellation policy is the single most-confused booking term across OTA listings and the source of most policy disputes; explicit channel-by-channel disclosure prevents most complaints.
See also:
Software that syncs rates and inventory across multiple OTAs from one place.
A channel manager pushes rate and availability updates to every connected OTA (Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, regional channels) and pulls reservations back into the PMS. The depth and freshness of those connections matters: direct integrations push updates in seconds, XML feeds can lag 15-30 minutes and cause overbookings. Cloud PMSes increasingly bundle a channel manager; specialised channel managers like SiteMinder and Cloudbeds Distribution can also work with PMSes that lack one.
More: PMS integration guide · PMS Fit-Finder
The percentage of bookings each distribution channel produces.
Channel mix is the distribution of bookings across OTAs, direct, GDS, wholesale, and walk-in channels. A balanced independent mix typically targets 50-60% direct (own website plus repeat phone) and 40-50% OTAs in a leisure market. Channel mix is the single most tracked distribution KPI and the foundation for OTA-shift programs.
See also: OTA , Direct Booking , Channel Manager
A disputed card transaction reversed by the cardholder's bank.
A chargeback is a card transaction reversed by the cardholder's issuing bank after a dispute. Common hotel chargeback triggers include duplicate charges, unauthorized transactions on a stolen card, and disputes over service quality. Chargeback rates above ~1% trigger processor monitoring; properties should document policies and use 3D Secure to reduce chargeback exposure.
A rate available only to a defined customer segment (members, loyalty, corporate).
A closed-user-group rate is offered to a specific defined segment (loyalty members, corporate clients, government, AAA) and is not bookable by the general public. CUG rates sit outside rate-parity clauses in most jurisdictions because parity applies to publicly-bookable rates. The mechanism is the legal basis for offering meaningfully lower direct rates without violating OTA contracts.
See also: Rate Parity , Direct-Only Rate
A staff role overseeing operations across multiple properties in a hotel group.
A cluster manager is a staff role in hotel groups overseeing operations across multiple properties, typically 3-10 sister properties in a region. The role coordinates revenue management, brand standards, staff allocation, and group-rate management across properties. Cluster manager workflows benefit from multi-property PMS dashboards and consolidated reporting.
See also: Multi-Property , PMS
Competitive set. The peer properties used as a pricing and performance benchmark.
A compset (competitive set) is the group of three to ten peer properties an independent hotel benchmarks against for pricing, occupancy, and rate strategy. The compset is the basis for STR Star reports and similar industry benchmarking products. Independents often define compsets manually using a list of comparable properties in the same market and segment.
See also: RevPAR , Dynamic Pricing
Online or kiosk-based guest check-in that bypasses the front desk.
Contactless check-in lets guests confirm identity, agree to terms, and receive a room assignment without queuing at reception. The flow is typically initiated by a pre-arrival message that links to a web form or mobile app; on arrival the guest may pick up a key from a smart locker or use a mobile key. For late-night arrivals it cuts front-desk workload meaningfully, and properties using it often report a substantial reduction in night-shift reception interactions.
More: Contactless check-in guide · Guestivo vs Canary on check-in
See also: Mobile Key , Guest Messaging , PMS
The share of website or booking-engine visitors who complete a reservation.
Conversion rate in a hospitality context usually refers to direct-website booking conversion: total bookings divided by unique site visitors over a period. Independent boutique hotels commonly see 1-3% conversion on direct traffic, with the booking engine quality, page speed, and pricing competitiveness as the main levers. A poor booking engine can lose 30-40% of would-be conversions to OTAs.
See also: Booking Engine , Direct Booking
Cost Per Acquisition / Action. Pricing model where the advertiser pays only for completed bookings.
CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) is a digital-advertising pricing model where the property pays only when a booking is completed. Google Hotel Ads, Trivago and some affiliate networks offer CPA pricing as an alternative to CPC. CPA is typically priced as a percentage of booking value, in the 5-15% range for hotel metasearch.
See also: Metasearch , Direct Booking , CPC
Cost Per Click. Pricing model for paid metasearch and Google Hotel Ads campaigns.
CPC (Cost Per Click) is a digital-advertising pricing model where the property pays each time a user clicks the ad. Google Hotel Ads, Trivago Sponsored Listings, and Kayak use CPC bidding. CPC bid management for hotel ads is typically handled by metasearch specialists (Koddi, Sojern) or in-house when ad spend is meaningful.
See also: Metasearch , Direct Booking
Customer Relationship Management software for guest profiles, segmentation, and lifecycle marketing.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) in the hotel context is software that stores guest profiles across stays, enables segmentation by guest history, and drives lifecycle marketing (pre-stay, in-stay, post-stay, lapsed-guest reactivation). Revinate and Cendyn are common hospitality-specific CRMs; some cloud PMSes bundle CRM modules sufficient for boutique operations.
See also: PMS , Guest Journey , Guest Messaging
Closed to Arrival. Revenue-management restriction blocking new arrivals on a specific date.
CTA (Closed to Arrival) is a revenue-management restriction that prevents new bookings from starting their stay on a specific date. It is commonly used before a high-demand night to protect inventory for guests who are willing to book a longer stay. Bookings that span the CTA date but arrive earlier or later remain valid.
See also: MLOS , CTD , Dynamic Pricing
Closed to Departure. Restriction blocking departures on a specific date.
CTD (Closed to Departure) is a revenue-management restriction that prevents bookings from ending their stay on a specific date. It is used to encourage longer stays through high-demand windows: a Friday CTD pushes weekend arrivals to stay through Sunday. CTD pairs with CTA for fine-grained inventory shaping.
See also: CTA , MLOS , Dynamic Pricing
Share of inbound guest messages an AI concierge handles without human escalation.
Deflection rate measures the percentage of guest messages an AI concierge resolves autonomously (no human handover). It is the most useful efficiency KPI for AI-concierge deployments. A reasonable target for an independent hotel is 60-75% by month three; below 40% in month three usually means the knowledge base has not been expanded past vendor defaults.
More: AI concierge guide: realistic deflection ramp
See also: AI Concierge , Knowledge Base
Modelling future occupancy and rate-mix based on historical and signal data.
Demand forecasting predicts future occupancy, rate mix, and booking pace based on historical performance, lead-time curves, competitor pricing signals, event calendars, and (increasingly) external indicators (flight bookings, weather, search interest). It is the foundation of dynamic pricing and inventory protection decisions. Forecast accuracy is the metric revenue managers track most often after RevPAR itself.
See also: Dynamic Pricing , RevPAR , Yield Management
A reservation made directly with the hotel rather than through an OTA.
Direct bookings come from a property's own channels (direct website, phone, email, walk-in) rather than from an OTA marketplace. Direct bookings carry no OTA commission and capture the full guest profile, which feeds loyalty, post-stay marketing, and CRM segmentation. Most independents target a healthy direct-to-OTA mix rather than a pure direct strategy because OTAs still drive incremental demand.
More: Direct-booking strategies that reduce OTA fees
See also: OTA , Booking Engine
A rate plan exclusively available via the property's direct channels, never via OTAs.
A direct-only rate is a rate plan offered exclusively on the hotel's direct booking engine, never published on OTAs. The mechanism sidesteps rate-parity clauses because parity clauses apply to publicly-bookable rates, and a closed-user-group rate (members, registered guests, signed-in users) is technically private. Direct-only rates are one of the most effective direct-booking incentives and are commonly paired with a member-signup hook.
See also: Rate Parity , Direct Booking , Closed-User-Group Rate
Room nights close to arrival without bookings, typically offered at discount to fill.
Distressed inventory is room-night inventory close to arrival (typically within 7-14 days) that has not been booked at standard rates. Properties typically offer distressed inventory at meaningful discount through last-minute OTAs (HotelTonight) or direct flash sales. The trade-off is filling versus protecting next-stay ADR for the channel.
See also: Dynamic Pricing , Channel Mix
Automatic rate adjustment based on demand, competition, and forecast.
Dynamic pricing is the practice of adjusting room rates in response to changing demand signals (events, competitor pricing, lead time, forecast occupancy). Software-driven dynamic pricing handles this without manual intervention; rule-based pricing handles it with operator-defined thresholds. RoomRaccoon's native dynamic pricing engine and standalone tools like Beyond and Wheelhouse are the common shapes operators encounter.
Google's quality signal: Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness.
E-E-A-T is the framework Google's human raters use to assess content quality. The first E (Experience) was elevated in the March 2026 core update; named tools, measured outcomes, and documented failure patterns now beat generic expertise on most queries. Hotel-tech content with first-hand operator detail (real prices, anonymised case data, named platforms) consistently outranks AI-generated category content.
See also:
A major OTA group operating Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, and Travelocity.
Expedia Group operates Expedia, Hotels.com, Vrbo, Travelocity, and Orbitz. Standard hotel commissions on the Expedia platform run 18-25% depending on package participation and Expedia Travel Agency Affiliate Program tier. Independents typically run Expedia alongside Booking.com to capture the segments where Expedia is dominant (US leisure, package travel).
See also: OTA , Channel Manager
Food and Beverage. The revenue stream from on-property dining and bar service.
F&B (Food and Beverage) is the revenue stream from on-property restaurants, bars, room service, and minibar. For full-service properties F&B is a meaningful share of total revenue (Total RevPAR vs RevPAR); for boutique and limited-service properties F&B is often a small share or absent. F&B technology is largely separate from rooms-side tech (POS systems like Toast, Lightspeed, Square) with integration to the PMS folio.
See also: Total RevPAR , Folio
The running ledger of charges associated with a single reservation.
A folio is the running ledger of charges and payments for a single guest stay: room charges, room service, F&B postings, spa, parking, upsell purchases, taxes, and credits. The folio sits inside the PMS and is the source of the final invoice at checkout. Integration quality is often measured by whether third-party tools can post directly to the folio or whether they require manual reconciliation.
Google Business Profile. The free Google listing that surfaces hotel hours, reviews, photos, and Maps presence.
GBP (Google Business Profile, formerly Google My Business) is the free Google listing that controls how a hotel appears in Google Maps, the local pack, and the hotel module. Properties manage hours, photos, reviews, posts and Q&A through GBP. Active GBP management correlates strongly with local-search ranking and direct booking rate.
See also: Direct Booking , Metasearch
Global Distribution System. The legacy travel-agent booking network (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport).
A GDS (Global Distribution System) is a legacy reservation network that connects hotels to travel agents and corporate travel programs. The four main GDS networks are Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport (Galileo, Worldspan, Apollo), and Pegasus. GDS bookings are a small share of the mix for most independents but matter disproportionately when corporate-travel volume is meaningful.
See also: OTA , Channel Manager
Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room. RevPAR minus the operating costs that produced it.
GOPPAR (Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room) is gross operating profit divided by available rooms. Where RevPAR measures revenue capture, GOPPAR measures profitability per room and is the metric independent owners actually pay attention to when judging operational efficiency. Two hotels with identical RevPAR can have very different GOPPAR depending on staffing model, utilities, and tech-stack overhead.
A reservation code that ties multiple bookings to a single event, contract, or room block.
A group code (or group block) is a single identifier in the PMS that ties multiple individual reservations to a contracted event: a wedding, a conference, a sports team booking. Group codes carry shared inventory, rate, and billing rules. Independent boutiques run group blocks manually in most cases; larger PMSes (Mews, Cloudbeds, Opera) automate group billing and cutoff dates.
See also: PMS
The end-to-end sequence of guest touchpoints from booking to post-stay.
The guest journey covers every interaction from booking confirmation through pre-arrival messaging, online check-in, in-stay messaging, upsell offers, departure, and post-stay review collection. Guest-journey software (Duve, Canary, HiJiffy, Akia, Asksuite, Guestivo) sits on top of the PMS and orchestrates these touchpoints. The PMS owns the reservation; the guest-journey layer owns the guest experience around it.
More: Guest-journey software comparisons · Guest-Journey Fit-Finder
See also: PMS , Guest Messaging , Upsell
Automated and manual two-way communication with guests across email, SMS, and WhatsApp.
Guest messaging covers the messages a hotel sends and receives outside the booking confirmation: pre-arrival information, mid-stay check-ins, upsell prompts, post-stay review requests. Multi-channel platforms route by guest preference (email, SMS, WhatsApp). Adding SMS to an email-only flow consistently lifts response rates because different guests respond to different media.
More: Automating pre-arrival to post-stay messages · Compare guest-messaging platforms
See also: Guest Journey , WhatsApp Business , AI Concierge
The operational discipline and team responsible for room turnover and cleanliness.
Housekeeping is the operational function covering room turnover, public area cleaning, linen management, and amenity restock. In the hotel-tech context, housekeeping software coordinates the daily room-status assignment, tracks completion, and signals back to the PMS when rooms become available for assignment. Modern housekeeping integrations remove the daily printed sheet and the front-desk phone calls.
See also: PMS , Night Audit
Real-time two-way guest communication during the stay, usually via SMS or WhatsApp.
In-stay messaging covers conversations between check-in and checkout: housekeeping requests, late-checkout asks, restaurant recommendations, issue resolution. Two-way SMS and WhatsApp dominate this layer because in-stay guests rarely open the hotel app or email. AI concierge platforms layer on top of the in-stay channel to deflect repetitive questions before they reach the front desk.
See also: Guest Messaging , AI Concierge , WhatsApp Business
A search-engine protocol that lets sites push URL changes to Bing and Yandex in real time.
IndexNow is an open protocol supported by Bing and Yandex (Google has not adopted it) that lets a site push notifications when URLs are added, updated, or deleted. It removes the dependency on a crawler discovering the change. Compatible CMS and static-site setups ping IndexNow on publish; the typical effect is hours-to-days faster indexing on supported engines.
See also: E-E-A-T
The structured property-specific data that an AI concierge draws on to answer guest questions.
A knowledge base in the AI-concierge context is the curated set of property-specific facts (pool hours, breakfast service, Wi-Fi password policy, late-checkout rules, local recommendations) that the assistant references when answering guests. The breadth and quality of the knowledge base is the single largest driver of deflection-rate ramp; vendor templates get the property to roughly 40-50% deflection in month one, and property-specific additions take it to 60-75% by month three.
See also: AI Concierge , Deflection Rate
Know Your Customer. Identity verification at check-in to comply with local regulations.
KYC (Know Your Customer) at check-in refers to identity verification typically required by local hospitality regulations. EU member states differ: Spain has Hospedajes, Italy has Alloggiati Web, Portugal has SEF. Modern contactless check-in platforms automate ID document capture, OCR, and government-portal reporting to satisfy KYC requirements.
See also: Contactless Check-in
Whether the final remaining room in inventory is sold to a given channel.
Last Room Availability (LRA) describes whether the final remaining room in inventory is sold to a particular channel (an OTA, a corporate-rate program, a wholesale partner). LRA terms are negotiated channel by channel; granting LRA to a top OTA boosts visibility but increases the risk of giving the last room to the lower-margin channel. Most independents grant LRA on direct and to selected OTAs only.
See also: OTA , Channel Manager
A rate-comparison engine that surfaces hotel prices across OTAs and direct (Google, Trivago, Kayak).
Metasearch engines aggregate hotel rates across OTAs and direct booking engines and present them on a comparison page, then redirect the visitor to the chosen channel to complete the booking. Major metasearch engines include Google Hotels, Trivago, Kayak, TripAdvisor (in its metasearch mode), and Skyscanner. Metasearch is typically a positive-ROI direct-distribution channel when the booking engine has clean rate parity and a fast checkout.
See also: Booking Engine , Direct Booking , OTA
Minimum Length of Stay. A revenue-management restriction requiring N+ nights.
MLOS (Minimum Length of Stay) is a revenue-management restriction that requires a booking to span at least N nights to be confirmed. It is used during high-demand windows to protect inventory for higher-value multi-night bookings instead of single-night flips. MLOS is the most commonly used length-of-stay control, paired with CTA (Closed to Arrival) and CTD (Closed to Departure) for finer-grained inventory protection.
See also: ALOS , Dynamic Pricing
A digital room key delivered to a guest phone, replacing or supplementing a key card.
Mobile keys use Bluetooth or NFC to unlock a guest room from a phone instead of a key card. Implementation requires compatible smart locks (Salto, Assa Abloy, OpenKey-compatible) plus a guest app or web wallet pass. Mobile-key adoption is highest at properties with a younger guest skew and on late-night arrivals; key-card retention remains common as a fallback.
See also: Contactless Check-in
Market Penetration Index. Property occupancy divided by compset occupancy, indexed to 100.
MPI (Market Penetration Index) measures a property's occupancy relative to its competitive set, indexed where 100 equals the compset average. An MPI of 110 means the property runs 10% higher occupancy than its compset. MPI alone does not show profitability; it should be read alongside ARI and RGI.
See also: STAR Report , ARI , RGI
A configuration where one platform manages multiple hotel properties under one operator.
Multi-property is the configuration where one PMS (or guest-journey platform, or channel manager) manages multiple physical properties under one operator account. The capability matters for hotel groups, mini-chains, and independents with sister properties. Pricing, role-based access, consolidated reporting, and cross-property guest profile lookup are the four most-tracked multi-property capabilities.
See also: PMS
A wholesale rate the hotel offers to a B2B partner who marks up freely.
A net rate is a wholesale price the hotel offers to a B2B distribution partner (wholesaler, tour operator, bedbank) who then marks up the rate for retail sale. Net rates are typically meaningful percentages below the BAR (best available rate). Net-rate contracts trade lower margin for guaranteed volume from the partner channel.
See also: Wholesaler , Bedbank , BAR
The end-of-day operational checkpoint that closes the books and rolls the system to the next date.
The night audit is the daily checkpoint where the property closes financial transactions for the operating date, verifies room status, posts room and tax charges, balances cash drawers, and rolls the PMS to the next operating date. Cloud PMSes increasingly automate the audit but the operator typically reviews the closing report each morning. Errors caught in the night audit are easier to correct than errors discovered weeks later.
See also: PMS , Housekeeping
A charge applied when a guest with a reservation fails to arrive without cancelling.
A no-show fee is a charge applied to a reservation when the guest fails to arrive without cancelling in time. Standard no-show fees range from one-night charge to full-stay charge depending on the rate plan and cancellation policy. Enforcement requires a valid card pre-authorisation; properties without authorisation infrastructure often cannot collect.
See also: Cancellation Policy
Net Promoter Score. A 0-10 question that produces a -100 to +100 advocacy score.
NPS (Net Promoter Score) asks guests how likely they are to recommend the property on a 0-10 scale. Scores of 9-10 are Promoters, 7-8 are Passives, 0-6 are Detractors; NPS is %Promoters minus %Detractors and ranges -100 to +100. Hospitality NPS benchmarks vary widely by segment; independent boutique properties commonly target 50+ as a directional goal.
See also: Guest Journey , Post-stay Messaging
A guest scoring 0-6 on the Net Promoter Score 0-10 question.
An NPS Detractor is a guest who rates the property 0-6 on the 0-10 Net Promoter Score question. Detractors typically generate negative reviews, do not return, and may share their experience publicly. Detractor recovery (proactive outreach within 24 hours of the negative score) is the highest-leverage NPS workflow lever.
See also: NPS , Guest Journey
A guest scoring 9-10 on the Net Promoter Score 0-10 question.
An NPS Promoter is a guest who rates the property 9-10 on the 0-10 Net Promoter Score question. Promoters are the highest-value segment for direct rebooking, online review generation, and word-of-mouth marketing. Promoter activation (review request, repeat-stay offer, referral program) is the highest-leverage NPS workflow lever for revenue.
See also: NPS , Direct Booking
The share of available room nights that were sold over a given period.
Occupancy is the percentage of room nights sold out of room nights available. It is one of the three core revenue-management metrics alongside ADR and RevPAR. Occupancy alone is misleading: a hotel can hit high occupancy by discounting heavily, which compresses ADR and may not lift RevPAR.
Online Travel Agency. Booking.com, Expedia, Airbnb, Hotels.com, etc.
An OTA (Online Travel Agency) is a third-party booking marketplace that lists rooms from many properties and earns a commission on each reservation. Commissions typically run 15-25% of the booking value depending on the platform and tier. OTAs drive incremental demand but compress per-booking margin compared to direct channels.
More: How to reduce OTA fees
See also: Direct Booking , Channel Manager
Cumulative bookings on the books compared to historical patterns.
Pace measures cumulative bookings on the books for a specific future date or period compared to historical patterns at the same lead time. Pace running ahead of historical signals demand strength; pace lagging signals weakness. Pace plus pickup plus pricing are the three core revenue-management routines.
See also: Pickup , Demand Forecasting
Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. The card-data security framework.
PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) is the framework that governs how merchants handle credit-card data. Hotels processing card transactions must comply at the appropriate PCI level based on annual transaction volume. Modern payment processors (Stripe, Adyen, Mews Payments, Cloudbeds Payments) reduce PCI scope substantially through tokenisation, lowering the compliance burden.
See also: PSD2
New bookings added during a specific time period.
Pickup measures new bookings added during a specific period (typically the past 7, 14, or 30 days) for future arrivals. Strong pickup vs the historical booking curve signals demand strength; weak pickup signals demand softness. Daily pickup tracking is a core revenue-management routine alongside RevPAR and pace.
See also: Demand Forecasting , RevPAR
Property Management System. The core software that runs hotel operations and reservations.
A PMS (Property Management System) is the operational backbone of a hotel: reservations, room assignments, rates, housekeeping coordination, guest profiles, and night audit. Modern cloud PMSes (Cloudbeds, Mews, RoomRaccoon, Apaleo, Hotelogix, Little Hotelier, eZee Absolute) bundle varying combinations of channel manager, booking engine, and reporting. The PMS is distinct from the guest-journey layer that runs on top of it.
More: PMS Fit-Finder · Top 5 cloud PMS for small hotels
See also: Channel Manager , Booking Engine , Guest Journey
The process of moving from one Property Management System to another.
PMS migration is the process of switching an active hotel from one PMS to another, preserving historical reservations, guest profiles, and rate calendars. Migrations are the highest-risk operational change a property runs; data quality issues that were invisible inside the old PMS often emerge during export, and a poorly-executed migration can lose weeks of booking data. The standard playbook is a multi-week parallel-run period before cutover.
Automated follow-up after departure: review requests, NPS surveys, and rebooking offers.
Post-stay messaging covers the messages a property sends after departure: review request (24-72 hours post-checkout), NPS or CSAT survey, repeat-stay offer or loyalty signup, and lapsed-guest reactivation. The review request is the single highest-leverage touchpoint because review volume drives ranking on TripAdvisor, Google Business Profile, and OTA placement.
More: How to get more Google reviews
See also: Guest Messaging , NPS , Guest Journey
Automated guest messages sent between booking confirmation and check-in day.
Pre-arrival messaging is the sequence of automated messages a property sends after the booking confirmation and before arrival: typically a welcome message 7 days out, an upsell offer 48 hours out, a check-in link 24 hours out, and an arrival-day instruction. Pre-arrival upsell offers convert at roughly 8% on average and contribute a several-euro ADR lift per accepted offer.
More: How to automate guest messages
See also: Guest Messaging , Guest Journey , Upsell
EU Payment Services Directive 2, requiring Strong Customer Authentication for payment transactions.
PSD2 (Payment Services Directive 2) is the EU regulation requiring Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) for most card-not-present transactions. Hotel payment flows in the EU must comply with SCA, which typically means 3D Secure 2 authentication at booking. Pre-arrival authorisation holds also fall under PSD2 SCA requirements.
See also: Booking Engine
The principle that a hotel offers the same public rate across OTAs and direct channels.
Rate parity is the commitment that a published room rate matches across OTAs and the property's direct channel. Parity clauses have been challenged or relaxed in several jurisdictions (EU member states, Germany specifically) which gives independents room to publish lower direct rates legally. Closed-user-group discounts (members, loyalty program) typically sit outside parity.
See also: OTA , Direct Booking , Channel Manager
The publicly bookable rate, as opposed to net wholesale rates.
A retail rate is the rate publicly available for booking on OTAs and direct channels. Retail rates are constrained by rate parity in most jurisdictions. Compare with net rates (B2B wholesale) and closed-user-group rates (members, loyalty, corporate).
See also: BAR , Rate Parity , Net Rate
Revenue Per Available Room. The blended metric: ADR × occupancy.
RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Room) measures total room revenue divided by total available rooms (occupied or not). It blends rate strategy and demand capture into one number. RevPAR is the single most-tracked revenue-management KPI because rate-only or occupancy-only optimisation can both leave money on the table.
Revenue Generation Index. Property RevPAR divided by compset RevPAR, indexed to 100.
RGI (Revenue Generation Index) measures a property's RevPAR relative to its competitive set, indexed where 100 equals the compset average. RGI is the most-watched STAR Report metric because it blends both rate and occupancy. An RGI above 100 indicates outperformance; below 100 indicates underperformance.
See also: STAR Report , MPI , ARI , RevPAR
A group of rooms held under a single contract for an event, wedding, or corporate stay.
A room block is a set of rooms held under a contracted rate for a specific group: a wedding party, a corporate event, a sports team, a conference. The block carries cutoff dates, attrition rules, and a group code that ties all individual bookings together. Independent boutiques manage blocks manually in most cases; mid-scale PMSes (Mews, Cloudbeds) automate block billing and cutoff enforcement.
See also: Group Code , PMS
Strong Customer Authentication. PSD2-mandated two-factor authentication for card payments.
SCA (Strong Customer Authentication) is the PSD2-mandated two-factor authentication for card-not-present payments in the EU. Typical implementation is 3D Secure 2, which adds a step at booking where the cardholder confirms via banking app or SMS. Modern booking engines and payment processors handle SCA automatically without operator-side configuration.
See also: PSD2 , Booking Engine
One login that grants access to multiple connected systems.
Single sign-on (SSO) lets a staff user log in once and access multiple connected systems (PMS, channel manager, guest-journey platform, payment gateway) without separate credentials. SSO is increasingly expected at independent properties as the tech stack expands; the SAML or OIDC standards underpin most modern implementations. Properties without SSO accumulate operational friction proportional to stack size.
An electronic lock that supports mobile keys, key cards, or PIN access.
Smart locks are electronic locks that grant access via mobile credential, key card, or PIN. Common hospitality brands include Salto, Assa Abloy (Vingcard, Yale), Onity, and OpenKey. Retrofit options exist for older properties but draw the most from the deepest PMS or guest-app integration rather than the lock hardware itself; the integration depth is the operational deciding factor.
See also: Mobile Key , Contactless Check-in
A franchise model where independent hotels retain branding but use a chain's tech stack and loyalty.
Soft branding is a franchise model where an independent hotel keeps its own name and design identity but uses the parent chain's technology stack, loyalty program, and distribution. Examples include Marriott's Autograph Collection and Hilton's Curio Collection. Soft brands trade independence for distribution leverage; the tech-stack choices are typically prescribed by the parent.
See also: Multi-Property , PMS
STR performance benchmark report comparing a property against its competitive set.
A STAR Report (from STR / CoStar Group) compares a property's performance on occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR against a defined competitive set of similar properties. The report uses percentile rankings and indexed metrics (MPI, ARI, RGI) to show relative performance. Requires subscription plus participating-property data submission.
A short-term inventory close on a specific channel or rate plan.
A stop-sell is an immediate halt on selling a specific rate plan, room type, or channel without removing the inventory permanently. Operators use stop-sells to react to operational issues (overbooking risk, maintenance, OTA technical glitches) without restructuring the rate calendar. Stop-sells are the easiest revenue-management lever to misuse: they should be temporary, not a substitute for proper inventory planning.
See also: Channel Manager , PMS
Replacing card numbers with non-sensitive token strings to reduce PCI scope.
Tokenisation replaces raw card numbers with non-sensitive token strings that the processor maps back to the underlying card. Tokens can be safely stored in the PMS folio for repeat charges (no-show fees, incidentals) without bringing the PMS into PCI scope. All modern payment processors offer tokenisation as a default feature.
Total revenue per available room: rooms plus F&B, spa, parking, and other ancillary streams.
Total RevPAR (TRevPAR) adds non-room revenue (F&B, parking, spa, room service, paid Wi-Fi, ancillary fees) to the RevPAR calculation. For full-service properties, TRevPAR is the more useful efficiency metric than RevPAR alone because ancillary revenue can be the difference between profit and breakeven. For independent boutiques without significant F&B, TRevPAR and RevPAR converge.
A large APAC-led OTA group operating Trip.com, Ctrip, Skyscanner, and Qunar.
Trip.com Group is one of the largest OTA conglomerates globally, dominant in Asia-Pacific. The group operates Trip.com (international), Ctrip (China), Skyscanner (metasearch), and Qunar (China). For independent properties with meaningful APAC inbound demand, Trip.com participation is operational; outside that profile it is a smaller incremental channel.
See also: OTA
A major hospitality reviews platform with embedded metasearch and Plus subscription.
TripAdvisor is the largest hospitality reviews platform globally, with embedded metasearch (Instant Booking and TripAdvisor Plus) and a substantial influence on independent-hotel rankings in many markets. TripAdvisor traffic is a meaningful direct-booking source when the property profile is strong and recent reviews are positive.
See also: Metasearch , OTA
A metasearch engine majority-owned by Expedia Group, strong in DACH and Southern European markets.
Trivago is a hotel-specific metasearch engine, majority-owned by Expedia Group. It is a positive-ROI direct channel for independent properties in DACH (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), Southern European, and Latin American markets where its consumer footprint is strongest. Outside those markets Google Hotels and Kayak typically deliver more incremental direct revenue.
See also: Metasearch , Expedia
Selling room upgrades or add-ons after booking but before or during the stay.
An upsell is an offer for a higher rate plan (room upgrade) or an add-on (early check-in, late checkout, breakfast, transfer, parking) presented to a guest after the original booking. Pre-arrival upsell offers sent 48 hours before arrival typically convert at around 8% with a several-euro lift to ADR per accepted offer. Native upsell engines and dedicated platforms (Oaky, Nor1) are the usual shapes operators encounter.
More: Upselling technology guide
See also: ADR , Guest Messaging
When a hotel cannot accommodate a confirmed reservation and relocates the guest to another property.
Walking a guest means a hotel cannot accommodate a confirmed reservation (typically due to overbooking) and relocates the guest to another property at the original hotel's expense. Industry standard practice is to provide equal-or-better accommodation, transportation, and a goodwill gesture. Overbooking strategy must include a relocation protocol and partner agreements.
See also: Cancellation Policy , PMS
A guest who arrives at the property without a reservation.
A walk-in is a guest who arrives at the property without a prior reservation, typically asking for same-day accommodation. Walk-ins are a high-margin channel because they bypass OTA commission entirely, but they require the property to have inventory available, which means leaving some inventory closed on OTAs as a deliberate strategy. The economics flip during low-demand periods when walk-ins compete with OTA-shifted inventory.
See also: OTA , Direct Booking
A callback URL that one system pings when an event occurs in another system.
A webhook is a callback mechanism: system A holds a URL provided by system B, and pings that URL when a specific event occurs (a new booking, a payment captured, a check-in completed). Webhooks enable real-time integration without polling, which is the foundation of low-latency PMS-to-guest-journey-platform sync. Vendors that only support polling APIs (no webhooks) introduce minutes of latency that compound into operational issues.
WhatsApp's business-grade messaging product for templated and conversational guest comms.
WhatsApp Business is the platform hotels use to message guests on WhatsApp at scale. The Business API (used by guest-messaging platforms) supports template messages, broadcast campaigns, and two-way conversations within a 24-hour window of a guest's last reply. WhatsApp dominates guest preference in some markets (LATAM, Iberia, parts of Asia) while SMS dominates in others (US).
See also: Guest Messaging , Guest Journey
A B2B distributor that resells discounted rates to retailers, packagers, and consolidators.
A wholesaler is a B2B distribution channel that buys discounted rates from hotels and resells them to retail OTAs, tour operators, packagers, and corporate travel agencies. Major hospitality wholesalers include Hotelbeds, GTA, and Tourico. Wholesale rates are usually subject to net-rate contracts (the hotel sets a wholesale net rate and the wholesaler marks up freely) rather than commission contracts.
An additional commission paid to a wholesaler for hitting volume thresholds.
A wholesaler commission override is an additional commission percentage paid to a B2B distribution partner when they exceed an agreed sales volume threshold. Overrides incentivise wholesalers to push inventory aggressively but compound channel costs. Modern channel-mix optimisation typically reduces wholesaler dependency in favour of direct and tier-one OTA channels.
See also: Wholesaler , Net Rate
The discipline of selling the right room to the right guest at the right price.
Yield management is the predecessor and parent discipline of dynamic pricing: maximising revenue per available room by adjusting rate, length-of-stay restrictions, and channel allocation based on demand forecast. The phrase is now used somewhat interchangeably with revenue management in independent-hotel context; technically yield management focuses narrowly on rate-and-restriction levers while revenue management covers the broader strategy.
See also: RevPAR , Dynamic Pricing , Demand Forecasting