At this time of year, once the Christmas and New Year period is behind you, many hoteliers begin planning for the spring and summer season. The most common question is: are future bookings performing better or worse than last year?
NB: This is an article from Smartness
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and stay up to date
February is the ideal time to find out. By now, you should already have enough forward bookings to make meaningful evaluations, but you are still early enough to intervene if something is not adding up.
The real issue is the method you use. The most common mistake is simply comparing this year’s bookings to last year’s numbers.
If you do not also consider booking pace, lead time, ADR performance, and the impact of cancellations, this comparison can be misleading and, in some cases, counterproductive.
That is why in this article you will find a 5-step check-up you can use today to understand whether your spring and summer strategy is working or whether adjustments are needed.
Check #1: Booking pace
Booking pace refers to the speed at which you are selling rooms. It answers a simple question: are you selling faster or slower than last year?
This is critical information because a slower-than-normal booking pace is often the first sign that something is not working as it should. It may depend on:
- Rates that are not aligned with current demand
- Insufficient visibility across sales channels
- A strategy that reacts too slowly to market changes
The most common mistake is waiting until closer to the stay date to “see how it goes.” When the delay becomes obvious, it is often too late to recover lost revenue.
Practical example: how to analyze booking pace for your hotel
Imagine you want to evaluate booking pace for the month of March. To determine whether your pace is healthy, you should analyze:
- On-the-books nights (OTB)
Compare how many nights you have already sold today for March, meaning confirmed future bookings, with how many nights had been sold by the same date last year.
- Pickup variation
Look at how many new nights are being booked each week for March. This is your pickup, meaning the increase or decrease in bookings over a specific period. Then verify whether your sales rhythm is aligned with, faster than, or slower than the same period last year.
- How to interpret the data
By combining on-the-books and pickup data, you may find yourself facing different scenarios:
- OTB in line or higher, but pickup slowing down: you are selling well, but demand may be starting to saturate.
- Lower OTB, but accelerating pickup: demand has not disappeared; it is simply booking closer to arrival.
- Higher OTB and faster pickup: you are building bookings earlier than last year.
- Lower OTB and weak pickup: this may signal misaligned pricing or insufficient visibility.
