Hotel revenue guides for independent hotels

Who the guides are for

They are written for owners, general managers and revenue managers of independent hotels, guesthouses and small groups. A chain hotel can usually lean on a revenue team, benchmark subscriptions and a head office that sets the rules. An independent hotel may have a spreadsheet and a property management system, and the person reading the reports often runs the front desk as well.

So the guides start from the questions that come up in a normal week. What does our RevPAR actually say? Is our average rate too low, or are we just quiet? What does an online travel agency booking leave us after commission? Do we need a channel manager, and what does it really do? How full do we have to be before the month stops losing money?

You do not need a finance background to follow them. Each guide defines its terms the first time they appear, keeps one idea to a sentence, and puts the arithmetic in a worked example you can repeat with your own figures.

How we write and check them

Every figure in a guide links to its source. A small number after a sentence takes you to the source list at the bottom of the page, and each entry there shows when we last opened it. We prefer sources that set or measure the rules: regulators and courts, company filings, the published rules of benchmark providers, hospitality schools and the documentation platforms publish for their partners.

When a company does not publish a number, we say so instead of filling the gap. Commission rates are the clearest case. When a guide states a figure about a company, it comes from that company’s own pages or filings, or from a court or regulator, and the source list says which. Where we give our own estimate, it is labelled as an estimate.

We do not use testimonials, invented quotes or customer stories, and we do not rank vendors. The guide text does not name companies at all: it describes a platform or vendor by its type, such as a large booking platform or a PMS vendor, and says what that company states about its own product. The company’s name appears only in the source list, next to the page we took the fact from.

The worked examples are not typed by hand. Each one calls the same function the matching calculator uses, so the guide and the calculator always agree. If a formula changes, the example changes with it, and our tests fail until the text is checked again.

Each guide shows a "Last checked" date near the top. Rates, rules and platform terms change, so we review the guides at least twice a year and update the date when we do. If you find something wrong or out of date, the contact details are on the About page and we correct pages when a report checks out.

Using the guides with the calculators

Each guide links the calculator it explains. Read the guide once to understand what the inputs mean, then open the calculator and enter your own numbers. The worked example in the guide uses the same layout, so you can check your result step by step.

The guides are general information. They explain how the numbers work and what the rules say on the date shown. They are not advice for your hotel, your contracts or your taxes, so check anything important with your accountant, your platform agreements or a qualified adviser.

What we are working on next

The first guides cover the measures and costs that come up most often. Topics we are considering next include profit per available room and total revenue per room, rate parity, the real cost of a direct booking, what a property management system does, and the basics of revenue management for small hotels.