Booking pace: are your coming nights filling faster or slower than last year

Pace sets two figures side by side for each coming night: the rooms on the books today, and the rooms the matching night last year had when it was the same number of days away. A Saturday 30 days out with 22 rooms sold, against last year's matching Saturday with 15 at 30 days out, is 7 rooms ahead of pace.

Pace and pickup are read together. Pickup is how many rooms a night gained over a day or a week; pace is where the night stands against its reference. EHL Hospitality Business School describes the booking pace curve, how reservations build up towards a future date, set against the same point the year before, and counts any gap among the earliest and most reliable signs of demand a hotel gets.

• Match the night by day of the week, not by date: a Saturday with a Saturday.
• Match festivals with festivals. Diwali, Holi, Eid and the wedding season's busiest dates move from year to year.
• Compare at the same number of days before arrival, not on the same calendar day.
• Count rooms with cancellations taken off, and keep the revenue on the books beside them.

1. 1List the coming nights in rows: the next 90 nights, and further ahead for your festivals and wedding dates.
2. 2For each night, write today's rooms on the books and the revenue on the books, across every channel, with cancellations taken off.
3. 3For each night, find the matching night last year and the rooms it had at the same number of days before arrival. Your property management system's history, or last year's daily notes, will have it.
4. 4Write how many rooms the matching night finished with, so you can see how much it picked up from this point on.
5. 5Take last year's figure from this year's. Above zero is ahead of pace; below zero is behind.
6. 6Update it every morning for the coming weeks, and every week for nights more than a month away.

• Booking.com: the “Pace Report” page in the extranet's “Analytics” tab keeps track of bookings with stay dates in the future and compares them with previous years. Booking.com's notes for developers say the report counts reservations by stay date with cancellations taken off, with the revenue they will bring.
• Booking.com's “Demand” page, in the same tab, shows when travellers plan to visit your city, how long they plan to stay, and how that demand compares with your own bookings.
• Expedia Group: Rev+, on the “Revenue Management” page in Partner Central, is free for hotel partners. Its key insights cover the next 90 days, and its market demand calendar shades each date of the year by how high demand in your market is expected to be.
• Your property management system or channel manager, if every booking goes into it: the only pace report that covers the whole hotel.

A booking site's pace covers only its own bookings. Read it to see whether that site is bringing more or fewer guests than last year, and keep your own pace for the hotel.

• Ahead of pace, with the town busy too: demand is up, and the price can rise in steps.
• Ahead of pace while the hotels around you are still open and cheaper: check whether you are simply the lowest price in town.
• Ahead because of one group or a wedding block: take the block out and read the rest, or you will price the other rooms for demand that isn't there.
• Behind pace far ahead, when your guests book late: look at your lead time before you worry. If most bookings for that night usually come in its last week, being behind 60 days out may mean little.
• Behind pace close in: act now, because the time left to pick up is short.

EHL Hospitality Business School says dates well ahead of pace can often take a higher rate, and dates falling behind may need a promotion or a change in where you sell.

• Ahead: raise the price, close the cheapest rate plans, or add a minimum stay on the busiest night.
• Behind: check what the hotels around you charge for the night, and that your rooms are on sale at the price you set on every site.
• Behind on midweek nights: write to the companies, travel agents and event organisers who bring guests on those days.
• Behind for a festival: put the dates and an offer on your website and listings early, before guests choose somewhere else.
• Change one thing at a time, and watch the next week's pickup to see whether it worked.

• A new hotel, or one renovated since, has no fair last year. Compare with a forecast instead: how many rooms you expect to sell each night, and by when.
• Last year's night may have held a group, a closure or an event that won't come again.
• A small hotel's figures jump: one booking for four rooms can swing a night from behind to ahead. Read a week of nights together.
• Guests' habits change. Booking.com, Expedia and Agoda each show how far ahead your guests book, and if that has shortened, this year's pace can look behind last year's even for nights that will end up just as full.