Opening a pickup report and realizing you are behind last year has a way of instantly raising stress levels. It triggers a familiar spiral of questions about pricing, demand strength, and whether the market is slipping away.
NB: This is an article from Topline, one of our Expert Partners
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You can almost hear the internal voice saying, “Are we missing something?” or worse, “Are we already too late?” The instinct is often to react quickly, just to feel like something is being done. And in hotel revenue, doing something always feels better than sitting still.
Before making any changes, it is important to pause. Not pacing like last year does not automatically mean performance is weak or that something is broken. In many cases, it simply means guest behavior has shifted, and your strategy needs interpretation before action. Pace is information, not a verdict. The hotels that win long term are the ones that treat pacing gaps like clues, not emergencies.
Stop Treating Last Year as the Blueprint
Year over year pacing is a useful reference, but it is not a strategy. Last year may have benefited from one off events, unusual compression, or demand patterns that are not repeating this year. It might have been a concert weekend, a market spike, or even just different traveler confidence. Treating it as a baseline to chase can push hotels into unnecessary decisions, especially when this year’s landscape is not playing by the same rules.
Strong revenue leaders use last year as context rather than a target. They recognize that booking windows, channel dynamics, and cancellation behavior continue to evolve. They also understand that travelers are more unpredictable than they were even a few years ago. If pace is behind, the goal is to understand what changed, not to force performance to match an outdated pattern. Last year is a chapter, not a playbook.
Identify Where the Pace Is Actually Falling Short
A general sense of being behind does not provide enough clarity to guide good decisions. Before reacting, it is critical to isolate where the pacing gap actually exists. Otherwise, hotels tend to overcorrect in ways that solve nothing and create new problems.
