Resources
Hospitality Marketing Glossary
Your hotel marketing glossary in plain English. A plain-English reference for the terms you actually use — revenue, distribution, marketing, and guest data. Built by hoteliers, for hoteliers.
A
- ADR
- Average Daily Rate — total room revenue divided by total rooms sold for a given period.
- ALOS
- Average Length of Stay — total room nights divided by total reservations across a period.
B
- Booking Engine
- The software powering direct bookings on a hotel’s own website; also called an OBE or IBE (Internet Booking Engine).
C
- CDP
- Customer Data Platform — a system that unifies guest data from multiple sources into a single profile for activation across marketing channels.
- Channel Manager
- Software that synchronizes a hotel’s rates and inventory across multiple distribution channels in real time.
- Compset
- Competitive Set — the group of comparable properties a hotel benchmarks itself against for performance and pricing.
- CRS
- Central Reservation System — the system that holds a hotel’s room inventory and rates and distributes them to booking channels.
D
- Direct Booking
- A reservation made directly with the hotel — through its website, app, or call center — bypassing third-party OTAs and avoiding commissions.
F
- Folio
- The guest’s running account during a stay — room charges, taxes, F&B, and any incidentals settled at check-out.
G
- GDS
- Global Distribution System — legacy travel-industry network (Amadeus, Sabre, Travelport) used primarily by corporate travel agents to book hotels.
- GOPPAR
- Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room — gross operating profit divided by available room nights; the profitability-oriented sibling of RevPAR.
L
- LOS
- Length of Stay — the number of nights in a single reservation; a key segmentation and rate-strategy variable.
N
- Net RevPAR
- RevPAR after deducting distribution and channel costs (commissions, transaction fees, loyalty redemption) — closer to true profitability.
- NPS
- Net Promoter Score — a guest-loyalty metric (−100 to +100) based on the question “how likely are you to recommend us?”
O
- OBE
- Online Booking Engine — the software on a hotel’s website that lets guests search availability and book direct.
- OTA
- Online Travel Agency — third-party booking sites such as Booking.com, Expedia, and Airbnb that resell hotel inventory for a commission.
P
- PMS
- Property Management System — the operational hub for reservations, check-in, billing, and housekeeping at a hotel.
- Property Management System
- Full term for PMS — the system of record for room status, reservations, and folios at a hotel.
R
- Rate Parity
- The practice of maintaining identical publicly available rates across all distribution channels; often required by OTA contracts.
- Rate Shopping
- Automated monitoring of competitor rates across channels to inform pricing decisions.
- Revenue per Available Room
- Full term for RevPAR — the headline KPI for hotel rooms performance.
- RevPAR
- Revenue Per Available Room — total room revenue divided by total available rooms (occupied or not).
- RFP
- Request for Proposal — the formal process by which corporate buyers and groups solicit rate and service bids from hotels.
- RGI
- Revenue Generation Index — a property’s RevPAR divided by the competitive set’s RevPAR; a benchmarking score where 1.00 means at-market.
T
- TRevPAR
- Total Revenue Per Available Room — includes F&B, spa, and other ancillary revenue alongside rooms; useful for resorts.
Y
- Yield Management
- The pricing discipline of selling the right room to the right guest at the right time for the right price; predecessor to modern revenue management.
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Why it matters
How to use this hotel marketing glossary
This hotel marketing glossary gathers the terms that come up in revenue meetings, marketing plans and vendor demos. Each definition is short and practical, so you can check a term in seconds. Many of them relate to how hotels sell through online travel agencies (OTAs) and how they win guests back direct.
Revenue terms
ADR, RevPAR, Net RevPAR, TRevPAR, GOPPAR and RGI describe how well rooms and the whole property earn, and how you compare with your competitive set.
Distribution terms
OTA, GDS, CRS, channel manager, booking engine, rate parity and rate shopping cover where and how your rooms are sold.
Guest data and marketing terms
PMS, CDP, folio, NPS and direct booking explain where guest information lives and how it turns into repeat stays.
FAQ
Hotel marketing glossary
Who is this hotel marketing glossary for?
General managers, revenue managers, marketers and owners who want quick, plain-English definitions of common hotel terms.
What is the difference between RevPAR and ADR?
ADR is the average rate paid for rooms sold. RevPAR spreads room revenue across all available rooms, so it reflects both rate and occupancy.
Why does a direct booking matter?
A direct booking avoids OTA commission and gives the hotel the guest’s details, so it can build a relationship and invite the guest back.
Ready to put these metrics to work?
See how Directful turns OTA bookings into direct revenue — in 30 minutes.