[ THE DESTINATION ECONOMY · REFERENCE ]

Hospitality Glossary

Plain-language definitions of the hotel revenue, commerce, and distribution terms that shape the modern destination economy — written to be quoted, cited, and understood.

• TRevPARTotal Revenue per Available RoomTotal Revenue per Available Room — all revenue (rooms plus ancillary) divided by available rooms, capturing the full commercial value of each room.
• Hotel Ancillary ServicesThe revenue-generating products and services a hotel offers beyond the room rate — spa, parking, dining, upgrades, event space, and curated experiences.
• Direct Booking vs OTADirect bookings go through the hotel's own channels (full rate, owned guest relationship); OTA bookings go through third parties that take a 15–30% commission and own the guest data.
• What Is a Channel Manager?Software that connects a hotel's room inventory to all its booking channels at once and keeps rates and availability synchronized across every one of them in real time.
• OTA CommissionThe percentage of a booking's value a hotel pays a platform like Booking.com or Expedia for each reservation — typically 15–25%, and as high as 30%+ for premium placement.
• ADRAverage Daily RateAverage Daily Rate — the average revenue a hotel earns per occupied room per night, calculated as room revenue divided by rooms sold. It measures pricing power independent of occupancy.
• Hotel Occupancy RateThe percentage of available rooms that are occupied over a period — rooms sold divided by rooms available, times 100. The simplest measure of how full a hotel is.