The hospitality field is made of many different sectors including suppliers, hotels, and planners. Each work together to generate business ending in a boost of revenue and sales. However, each field has its own “lingo” that isn’t familiar to all those in the hospitality industry. In order to successfully conduct business with others outside of your realm of the industry, a mutual understanding of vocabulary is essential.
Submitted by professionals in the hotel and planner side of hospitality, these were the most common terms misunderstood between partners.
If you think we’re missing any key terms, please send your additions to our Manager of Communications, Claire!
A
Above the Line: Commission received from advertising like T.V., radio, posters and press.
Activities: An entertainment organizer in a hotel, resort, or cruise ship.
Adjusted Gross Operating Profit (AGOP): A measure of gross operating profit used to determine how much of your income is minus the hotel management base fee.
Advance Rates: Discounted rates to entice guests to book in advance.
Alternative Availability: Suggesting other available properties when requested property is unavailable.
Attrition: A clause included in a hotel contract to ensure an organization fulfills their contracted obligations
Average Daily Rate (ADR): A metric system used in the hospitality industry to measure the average rate paid for rooms sold
Average Published Rate (APR): A rate taken by averaging all types of hotel rooms throughout the year according to high or low season.
Attendance Building: Programs for marketing and promotional purposes designed to increase attendance at conventions, trade shows, meetings, and events.
Allotment: The number of hotel rooms available for sale by an agent or supplier
B
Base Fee: A monthly fee agreed upon by hotel management, typically two to four percent of monthly gross revenues of the hotel, to be earned by the hotel operator.
Bed Tax: An added price to a hotel room imposed by the city or country based on where the hotel is located.
Below the Line Promotion: Free printed promotional items, such as brochures and direct mail, set to build a relationship with the consumer
Benchmarking: A method of comparing a hotel against competitors. Subjects of comparing could include product/service, room rate, or quality.
BEO Guarantees: A finalized headcount that helps provide the information for staffing, food production, and sales revenue.
Best Available Rate (BAR): A pricing system used by hotels to define a rate based on the demand and occupancy of a room
Bid-Ask Spread: The difference in amount between the ask price a buyer is willing to pay and the lowest price a seller is willing to sell.
Blocked: Hotel rooms reserved without a deposit
Booking Patterns: Patterns of confirmed sales in a hotel
Boutique Hotels: Smaller luxury hotels that separate themselves from large competitors by their service and product offering.
Buyer: A person in the travel trade who is ultimately responsible for reserving room blocks
C
Charter Group: An organized group of travelers with a custom itinerary
Closing Ratio: The percentage of calls to contacts resulting in a verified sale
C&I: Conference and Incentive bookings.
Cold Call: A solicitation of business to convince potential customers to buy from a salesperson with no previous contact prior to the call.
Competitive Set: A group of hotels by which a property can compare itself to a competitor’s performance as a whole.
Confidential Tariff: Discounted prices solely quoted to wholesalers, tour operators and travel agents and unavailable for public use.
Co-op Advertising: Promotional products such as ads or customized items funded by two or more destinations or suppliers
Cooperative Marketing: Programs for marketing involving two or more participating companies, institutions or organizations
Corporate Rate: A special reduced rate for guests staying on business under negotiated terms
Cooperative Partner: An independent organization that works alongside a tourism office by providing donations or cash to increase the marketing impact of the tourism office’s program.
D
Day Guests: Guests who arrive and depart the same day
Distressed Inventory: Last minute discounted hotel rooms to ensure a property reaches full capacity.
Distressed Sale: A desperate need to sell assets due to unfavorable conditions results in seller receiving a lower price.
Double Occupancy (DBL): The hotel rate covers up to 2 people in the room
E
ETA: Estimated Time of Arrival
ETD: Estimated Time of Departure
Ecotourism: A responsible way of traveling to natural areas that conserve the environment and sustains the well being of local people.
European Plan (EP): One hotel package that excludes coverage of meals
Extranet: Back end of a hotel sales website allowing hotels to log in and enter all their rates, availability, and restrictions.
F
Familizartion Tours (FAM): Organized trips for members of the travel trade to familiarize them with tourism destinations
Feeder City: A distant city that attracts travelers to gateway cities.
Folio: An overview of a guest’s hotel account including all charges and payments made, stored at the reception desk.
Full Board: A rate that includes a bed and covers all standard meals
G
Global Distribution System (GDS): A computer software company that provides travel agencies with hardware for airplane, hotel, and car reservations.
Gross Operating Profit (GOP): The result of the hotel’s gross operating revenue minus gross operating expenses.
Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room (GOPPAR): A measure of performance across all sources of revenue.
Gross Operating Revenue (GOR): A hotel’s total operating revenue.
H
Half Board: A rate that includes a bed, breakfast and a choice of lunch or dinner.
Heads in Beds: The hospitality industry’s reason for existence, to sell hotel rooms and increase the occupancy rate of the hotel.
Hot Buttons: An issue that evokes emotional reactions, issues and legal principles in hotel contracts that causes friction between planners and suppliers
Hotelligence: Historical electronic booking data reports from Global Distribution Systems (GDS) that include information on rates and length of stay patterns, business sources, for their local competitive sets and individual subscriber properties.
House Count: The total guest occupancy of a hotel at any given moment.
House Manager: The manager underneath the General Manager in ranking that is responsible for an individual hotel, unlike the General Manager who covers more than one.
Join the movement for a better event. Try Social Tables today.
I
Icon: A famous landmark or facility associated with the destination.
Inbound Tourism: The traffic of international tourists spending foreign money contributing to the export economy.
Incidental Charges: Anything that costs extra than the hotel room rate. (e.g. parking, in-room movies, and internet).
Incentive Travel: A prized or rewarded trip to stimulate productivity of employees.
Incentive Fee: A highly negotiated management fee provided to the manager based on incremental profitability and manager’s operational expertise.
Independent Hotel: A hotel with no affiliation with a franchise or chain.
Intranet: A private computer network using Internet to securely share part of an organization’s information within itself.
Intelligent Hotels: Hotels that use state of the art technology to run operations
InterActiveCorp (IAC): A U.S. company that owns various online travel-related businesses.
Inventory (relative to hotel distribution): Rooms available the hotel has to sell across all channels.
J
JD Power: A company that conduct guest satisfaction surveys.
Joint Venture: An agreement between two or more individuals or businesses concur on sharing profit, loss and control in a specific endeavor.
Add hotel lingo to your business vocabulary
Click To Tweet
K
Are we missing any K’s you think should be included? If so, send your thoughts to our Manager of Communications, Claire!
L
Lanai: A room that has a balcony or patio with an overlook of water or garden
Lead Conversion: A lead that has been changed into an account, contact, or potential sale
Last Room Availability (LRA): A combination of negotiated and group rates that allow agents to book a hotel’s last available room at a contracted rate.
M
Market Parity: The process of assessing your product or service contribution against a competitor set to define your market price and confirm competitiveness.
Market Segments: An identified group in an overall market to which a specific service appeals. This is used in the hotel industry to determine who responds to a lead.
Market Share: a percentage of business within a market category.
Mattress Run: A traveler who is staying a number of nights in order to rack up points for their frequent stay program specific to that hotel chain.
Merchant Rate: A business model used by OTAs to markup hotel net rates to sell to the public.
N
Net Rate: A hotel rate given by travel agents and tour companies that can be marked up and sold at a higher rate to the end customer.
O
Occupancy: The measure of fill by dividing the total number of rooms occupied by the number of rooms available.
Owner’s Priority: An incentive fee included in hotel management agreements earned by a manager after the owner receives a return of a specified portion of the investment in the property.
Owner’s Total Investment: Includes total amounts spent to acquire, develop, construct and finance the hotel.
OTA: Online Travel Agent/Agencies.
Other Revenue: All other revenue made excluding room revenue and food and beverage.
Outbound Tourism: Residents travelling to an international destination.
P
Pax: Another term for number of people or passengers.
Pitfalls: A danger or problem that is hidden or unexpected.
Positive space: A confirmed reservation.
Press Trip: Travels with the main purpose of writing about that destination.
Preferred Rate: A negotiated rate between the hotel and a specific client.
Property Management System (PMS): A software hotels use to manage all operations.
Proprietary Booking Engine: An individual or group of hotels that own and operate their Internet reservation system.
Proposal: General information about what services and products a hotel can offer for customer’s meeting or event.
Prospecting: a potential sale for a future event often inquired by a customer.
Protected: A guarantee from a supplier or wholesaler to reimburse an agent commission and client on prepaid confirmed bookings regardless of cancellation.
Q
Qualifying Questions: Particular questions from hotels used to examine potential business.
Quin: Refers to hotel rooms that can accommodate five people.
R
Rate Parity: Under certain conditions, a travel supplier, such as a hotel, keeps the same price across all different distribution channels.
Rack Rate: The original price of a hotel room before any discounts or promotional rates are applied.
Receptive Operator: Specialists who handle arrangements for incoming visitors such as airport transfers, restaurants and accommodations.
Repeat Business: Returning business generating increase in profits
RevPar: Revenue per available room calculated on the number of rooms available to sell in a hotel.
Room Rack: A continually updated card index system reflecting occupied and vacant rooms
Rooms Management Module: An application from a computer-based property management system used in the front office to maintain up-to-date information on the status of rooms, assists in the assignment of rooms during registration, and helps coordinate various guest services
Rooms to space ratio: the amount of space a meeting uses for every guest room they occupy.
Rooms Yield: An equation averaging revenue from all rooms, divided by number of rooms in a hotel, divided by 365 nights.
Run Of House (ROH): A basic room type with no guaranteed specific amenities
S
Sales Blitz: A campaign to excite those responsible for selling to result in boost of potential business.
Sales Yield: The income or profit arising from sales.
Scout Lead: A research tool to scope out potential sale lead.
SIT: Special Interest Travel.
Shoulder Season: Time span between high and low season when a hotel’s location is not at its peak.
SMERF: An acronym for the group travel market for social, military, educational, religious and fraternal segment.
Smith Travel Research (STR) Rate: A series of reports, monthly, weekly, or daily, tracking supply and demand data for the hotel industry.
Source of Business: A breakdown structure a hotel uses to track how business brought in and which channel it came from.
Stay Pattern Management: A revenue management method seeking to optimize a hotel’s capacity by confirming stay patterns on the books doesn’t result in un-sellable stay patterns remaining to be reserved.
Stop Sell: The act of stopping the hotel from being booked on distribution channels, used when hotel is sold out during a certain time period.
T
Total RevPAR: Total revenue per available room. The sum of net revenues from all operating departments in addition to rentals and other income per available room for the time period divided by total available rooms during specified time period.
Transient Occupancy Tax: City or County tax added to the price of a hotel room.
Trial Close: A technique used to close a sale by ensuring the stakeholder understands the conditions of purchase and is serious about buying.
Turn: The process of completely changing a meeting room set-up from one event to the next.
Two-pack Hotels: A conjoined property of two hotels that share resources, such as back-of-house operations, but operate separately.
U
Unconstrained Demand: The demand for a hotel regardless of any capacity limitations.
V
Voice: Taking a hotel reservation over the phone.
W
Walk: Moving guests to a nearby hotel when overbooking occurs.
War Room: Another term for the office for meeting on site staff.
Wholesaler: A third party organization that sells hotel rooms such as sites, distribution channels, extranets, or merchants.
X
“X” Wide Sessions: Used to track how many breakout sessions are happening at one time by replacing X with a number.
Y
Yield Management: Process of understanding, anticipating and reacting to consumer behavior to maximize revenue. Also known as Revenue Management
Z
Z Hotel: A boutique hotel set in various locations around the world.
Although some terms may be recognizable, others can now be added to your business vocabulary. Refer to this dictionary to ensure your hotel “lingo” means the same while talking with business partners.
Special thanks to the senior sales manager from the Brown Palace Hotel and Spa, Kimberly Forte and the sales manager from the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, Christina Jacobs.
The post The Comprehensive Hotel Sales Dictionary appeared first on The Social Tables Blog.
No comments:
Post a Comment