Hotel-tech glossary

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 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

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

See also: OTA , PMS

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

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

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

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.

More: Revenue management & dynamic pricing

See also: ADR , RevPAR

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.

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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 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

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

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.

See also: ADR , 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

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

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.

See also: ADR , Occupancy

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

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