Hotel Terminology

Hotel & Hospitality Lingo

There are many terms floating around in the hospitality / hotel / resort / hotel revenue management industry, so we created this page to help you keep things straight.

A

Hotel Allocation

The number of rooms a hotel has available to be sold ...
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B

Hotel Brand

What is a hotel brand? A hotel brand is referred to as the hotel chain (such as Holiday Inn, or Hilton) that a hotel joins with. A hotel can change their brand (i.e. switch from a Hilton to a Holiday ...
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C

Hotel Cut Off Days

What does hotel cut off days mean? Cut Off Days (or sometimes also called Cut Off Hours or Cut Off Date) allows inventory to be closed out, or appear unavailable to the customer, starting at a certain number of days ...
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CTD – Closed To Departure

What does CTD or Closed To Departure mean? When CTD aka “closed to departure” is set for a date, a guest can not book this date if their stay ends on this date. If their stay includes this date, but ...
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CTA – Closed to Arrival

What does CTA or Closed to Arrival mean? When CTA aka "closed to arrival" is set for a date, a guest can not book this date if their stay begins on this date. If their stay includes this date, but ...
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D

Hotel Distribution Channel

What is a hotel distribution channel? A hotel distribution channel is an intermediary or company that creates the reservation on behalf of the hotel. Another way to look at a channel is a specific stream of booking revenue for a ...
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E

Hotel Extranet

What is a hotel extranet? The "front end" of a hotel sales website (i.e. Expedia.com or Booking.com) displays the hotel's information to allow guests to book stays with the hotel. The hotel extranet is the "back end" of a hotel ...
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G

GDS – Global Distribution System

What is a GDS or Global Distribution System? A GDS, or Global Distribution System, is a company that provides computer hardware and software to travel agencies for airplane, hotel, and car reservations. The four big GDS companies are Amadeus, Sabre, ...
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M

Max Nights, Max LOS, Maximum Length of Stay

What does hotel max nights (aka max los, or maximum length of stay) mean? A maximum length of stay is a booking restriction that only shows the stay as bookable if the stay is equal to or less than the ...
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Min Nights, MLOS, Minimum Length of Stay

What does hotel min nights (aka MLOS, or minimum length of stay) mean? A minimum length of stay restriction only shows the stay as bookable if the stay is equal to or greater than the minimum nights setting. If the ...
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Hotel Markup & Margin

What does hotel margin or hotel markup mean? Hotel markup and margin are terms used to calculate how much a sales website collects as their fee from booking one of your hotel's room nights. These two can be a little ...
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N

Hotel Net Rate

What does hotel net rate mean? The net rate is the amount the hotel collects from an OTA when a room night is sold on the OTAs website. So if the guest pays $100 for a room night (which the ...
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P

PMS – Property Management System

What does a hotel PMS or Property Management System mean? This is the software that is used to manage all operations of a hotel on site ...
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R

Hotel Rate Parity

What does hotel rate parity mean? You achieve rate parity for your hotel when the same rate structure exists across all of your hotel's distribution channels. This is important for many reasons. It increases your hotel's rate integrity, so the ...
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S

Hotel Stop Sell

What does hotel stop sell mean? This is the act of stopping the sales of your hotel's room nights on your distribution channels. A stop sell (aka closeout) prevents your hotel from being bookable. This is typical when a hotel ...
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Hotel Sell Rate

What does hotel sell rate mean? When your hotel's room nights are sold via one of your distribution channels, the amount the guest has to pay for your hotel's room night is the sell rate ...
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W

Hotel Wholesaler

What is a hotel wholesaler? This is a third party organization that sells your hotel's room nights. There are many terms for this such as third party sales sites, distribution channels, extranets, merchants or merchant model ...
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