Hotel glossary
40 terms, defined for Philippine properties. Every metric has its formula and a worked example in pesos, and every term says plainly whether MangoHost does it — including the ones where the answer is no.
Metrics
- Occupancy rateOccupancy rate is the share of your available room-nights that were actually sold in a period, expressed as a percentage.
- ADR (average daily rate)ADR is the average price a sold room-night actually fetched, across all the nights you sold in a period.
- RevPAR (revenue per available room)RevPAR is the room revenue you earned per available room, whether that room sold or not — occupancy and rate combined into one number.
- TRevPAR (total revenue per available room)TRevPAR is RevPAR with everything else included — food, drink, tours, transfers — divided by your available room-nights.
- GOPPAR (gross operating profit per available room)GOPPAR is your gross operating profit divided by available room-nights — what each room earned after the costs of running the place.
- Room-nightsA room-night is one room occupied for one night — the unit almost every hotel metric is built from.
- PickupPickup is how many room-nights were added for a future date since you last looked — the rate at which a month is filling.
Money & rates
- Net profit marginNet profit margin is the share of your total revenue you actually keep after every cost — including salaries.
- Cost per occupied room (CPOR)CPOR is what it costs you to service one sold room-night — housekeeping labour, linen, amenities, utilities.
- Payroll cost ratioPayroll cost ratio is your total staff cost as a percentage of revenue — usually the largest single cost a small hotel has.
- Displacement analysisDisplacement analysis asks whether taking a large low-rate booking costs you more in the higher-rate business it blocks than it brings in.
- FolioA folio is the running account attached to a stay — the room charge plus everything the guest adds to it, settled at check-out.
- Rate parityRate parity is the practice — often a contractual requirement — of not undercutting an OTA's price on your own channels.
- Base rateA base rate is the standing price for a room type — the rate that applies on any night you have not priced differently.
- Seasonal pricingSeasonal pricing means setting different rates for different parts of the year — peak, shoulder and low season — rather than one rate all year.
- Downpayment policyA downpayment policy is how much a guest pays to hold a booking, and what happens to it if they cancel or do not arrive.
Bookings
- Double-bookingA double-booking is two confirmed reservations for the same room on the same night — one of which you cannot honour.
- OverbookingOverbooking is deliberately selling more rooms than you have, on the expectation that some guests will not arrive.
- No-showA no-show is a confirmed booking whose guest never arrives and never cancels.
- Day-use bookingA day-use booking is a room sold for part of a day with no overnight stay — common at Philippine resorts for pool and beach access.
- Walk-inA walk-in is a guest who arrives without a reservation and books at the desk.
- Direct bookingA direct booking comes to you without an intermediary — your own site, a phone call, Messenger, or a returning guest.
- Length of stay (LOS)Length of stay is the number of nights in a booking; average LOS is the mean across a period.
- Lead time (booking window)Lead time is how far in advance a booking is made — the gap between the booking date and the arrival date.
Operations
- Room type vs room unitA room type is what you sell — “Sea View Double”; a room unit is an actual room — 204. One type contains many units.
- Out of order vs out of serviceOut of service means a room is temporarily unsellable but still counted in your inventory; out of order means it is taken out of the count entirely.
- Housekeeping inspectionInspection is the check between a room being cleaned and a room being sellable — a second person confirming the work.
- Turnover timeTurnover time is how long a room takes to go from a departure to sellable again — cleaned, inspected and ready.
- Shift reportA shift report is a short record filed by the staff member at the end of a shift: hours, rooms handled, tasks completed, and anything that went wrong.
- Night auditThe night audit is the end-of-day close: reconciling the day's charges and payments, rolling the business date forward, and producing the day's figures.
Systems
- PMS (property management system)A PMS is the system a property runs on: reservations, rooms, rates, housekeeping, guests and the numbers that come out of them.
- Channel managerA channel manager keeps your availability and rates in sync, two ways, between your own system and the OTAs.
- OTA (online travel agency)An OTA is a third-party site that sells your rooms for a commission — Booking.com, Agoda, Airbnb, Expedia.
- Booking engineA booking engine is the part of your own website that takes a reservation and a payment directly, without an OTA.
Philippine requirements
- BIR registrationBIR registration is a property's registration with the Bureau of Internal Revenue — the tax registration that makes it a legal business.
- BIR POS accreditation (Permit to Use)BIR POS accreditation — formally a Permit to Use (PTU) — is a separate approval from your business's own BIR registration: it certifies a specific computerised system to issue official receipts and sales invoices.
- DOT accreditationDOT accreditation is voluntary certification by the Philippine Department of Tourism that a property meets its standards for its category.
- Barangay permit and Mayor's permitA barangay clearance and a Mayor's permit are the local-government approvals a Philippine business needs, renewed annually alongside its BIR registration.
- PSGC codeThe PSGC — Philippine Standard Geographic Code — is the official numbering of every region, province, city or municipality and barangay in the country.
- Senior citizen and PWD discountPhilippine law entitles senior citizens and persons with disability to a 20% discount and VAT exemption on their share of a restaurant bill, on presentation of a valid ID.
Something missing? Tell us and we will write it — get in touch.