In order to improve your hotel’s occupancy rate, there are a few things you need to consider. For example, you want to know how to calculate your current occupancy rate, how optimal your current rate is, and whether there are specific times you should be focusing on.
If your hotel’s occupancy is great on the weekends but poor during the week, or if there’s an off season where your hotel really struggles, that’s worth investigation. It can mean that you aren’t seeing the kinds of numbers you should be.
It’s always good to know what your competition is doing, but finding that out isn’t easy and may not be possible. If that’s not something you can discover, there’s still plenty to focus on when it comes to your improving the occupancy rate at your hotel.
What is a hotel occupancy rate?
The occupancy rate of your hotel is based on the number of rooms you have filled. You can look at this figure by day, week, month, or even longer. The rate will be different depending on the length of time you consider.
For example, your average hotel occupancy rate may be near 100% on Saturday nights, but it may be closer to 30% on Tuesdays.
Taking a careful look at your occupancy rates can give you a lot of insight and information regarding your hotel. If the occupancy rate isn’t what you think it should be, some changes may be in order.
Understanding your hotel occupancy
Think of your hotel occupancy rate as a percentage of rooms booked for that night. When you have a lot of booked rooms you have a high rate of hotel occupancy. A lot of empty rooms means a lower rate. This is not always bad, and happens to nearly every hotel at some point, but you want to have as high of a rate as possible, as often as possible