Hotel Revenue Management Glossary

The rate at which reservations are accumulating for a future date, compared against same-time-last-year or budget.

Pace = Current On-the-Books ÷ STLY On-the-Books

Pace tells you whether next month is ahead, on, or behind. A 105% pace 30 days out doesn't always mean a great month - it can mean you discounted early. Always read pace alongside ADR pace and segment pace to know whether you're filling with the right business.

The number of days between when a reservation is made and the arrival date.

Booking windows shape your pricing strategy. Long windows (60+ days) reward early-bird rates and group prospecting; short windows (under 7 days) demand aggressive last-minute pricing and OTA saturation. Watch shifts in window length - a sudden contraction is the earliest signal of softening demand.

The change in rooms on the books for a future date over the past 24 hours.

Daily Pickup = Today's OTB − Yesterday's OTB (for arrival date)

Daily pickup is the heartbeat of pace tracking. Normal pickup for a Tuesday three weeks out is wildly different from a Saturday during compression. Build expectations by day-of-week and lead time, then watch for anomalies - a flat pickup day where you usually see 8 rooms is the earliest demand-soft signal you'll get.

The process of predicting future room demand using historical data, pace, market signals, and external events.

Forecasting is what separates a revenue manager from a rate clerk. The best forecasts blend STLY pace, segment behavior, comp-set rates, calendar events, weather, and air-traffic data. Modern RMS and AI tools automate the math - but the judgment of what to override and why still belongs to a human.

A daily or weekly report comparing on-the-books bookings against same-time-last-year and budget targets.

The pace report is the single most-read document in revenue management. It surfaces variance by day, segment, channel, and lead time - flagging where to act. Best-in-class pace reports include forecast deltas (where you are vs where you should be) and call out specific intervention windows.

The cumulative count of net new reservations made over a defined window for a future arrival date.

Pickup answers 'how much business did we add this week for that night?' Tracked over rolling 7- and 30-day windows, it tells you whether demand is accelerating or stalling. Decompose by segment to see which business is converting - group, transient, OTA, direct. The shape of pickup matters as much as the volume.

Decomposing room revenue by booking segment - transient, group, contract, wholesale, FIT - to reveal mix-driven performance.

Two hotels with the same RevPAR can have wildly different P&Ls based on segment mix. Group is sticky but lower-yield; transient is high-margin but volatile. Segment analysis exposes which segments are growing, which are leaking, and where to push acquisition spend. Always slice by segment AND lead time.

A pace comparison anchor - what your on-the-books bookings looked like at the same point in time one year ago.

STLY is the default reference frame for booking pace and forecast accuracy. It controls for seasonality but not for events, demand shifts, or major calendar changes (like Easter falling in March vs April). Smart shops blend STLY with budget pace and 3-year-average pace to cancel out year-specific noise.

The total demand for a hotel on a given night if there were unlimited rooms and no rate or restriction barriers.

Unconstrained demand is the theoretical ceiling - what you would have sold if you'd had infinite inventory at the right rate. Forecasting models estimate it to surface compression nights where MinLOS, closeouts, or rate increases will outperform. Without it, you're optimizing a constrained metric (occupancy) and missing real revenue lift.