Single and double occupancy: one room, priced by the number of guests

• Single: one guest in the room. Usually a little below the double price, rarely half of it, since the room costs nearly the same to clean and run.
• Double: two guests sharing the room, the price most guests see first.
• Triple or extra adult: a third guest, usually on an extra bed, at a set charge a night.
• Children: free up to an age, then at a child's charge, with or without an extra bed.
• Per person, twin sharing: how tours and groups are often priced, the double price divided between the two guests.

On a meal plan, each guest's meals add to the price, so the gap between single and double is wider on CP or MAP than on room only.

This is different from a hotel's occupancy rate, the share of its rooms sold on a night, which counts rooms, not guests.

• The Ministry of Tourism's star checklist lets a room sold for single occupancy be 20 square feet smaller than its category's minimum.
• In the same checklist, a single bed is at least 90 centimetres wide and a double bed 180.
• The Ministry's guidelines for approved guest houses set 120 square feet for a double room and 80 for a single, with bathrooms of 30 and 20 square feet.

These matter when you list a room as a double: a room sold to two guests should sleep two in comfort, in beds as wide as the listing says.

Booking.com calls it pricing per guest: for each room you set a base occupancy and its price, then a rule for each other number of guests, adding or taking off a fixed amount or a percentage. It works only for rooms that take more than one guest, and is set up room by room.

1. 1Set each room's maximum number of guests first: go to “Property”, then “Room details” or “Property layout”, click “Edit” and update the total number of guests.
2. 2Go to “Rates & Availability”, then “Pricing per guest”.
3. 3Choose the room, then set its base occupancy and base price.
4. 4Add a rule for each other occupancy: a fixed amount or a percentage, up or down, as the number of guests changes.
5. 5If the room has several rate plans, add the base occupancy and price for each, then click “Save changes”.

If you use a channel manager, Booking.com recommends setting pricing per guest there, if it supports one of Booking.com's occupancy pricing models. Some properties can ask Booking.com to activate rate-level occupancy, a separate price for each occupancy. Child rates on Booking.com cover children in the room's existing beds; extra beds and cots are set separately, under “Children and extra beds”.

• Go-MMT's extranet takes a sell rate for each occupancy, each in its own box, under “Rates & Inventory”, by date or with “Bulk Update”.
• Its linked rates let you set the single occupancy price as a reduction from the base price, by a percentage or a fixed amount, with prices for extra adults and children.
• Extra guest charges, for an extra adult and three age ranges of children, are updated by ticking “Update Extra Guest Charges” in a bulk rate update.
• On Agoda's Partner Portal, a room's guests and extra beds are set in “Room setup”, under “Room occupancy”. The price per extra bed goes under “Property settings”, in the “Property age policy”, and Agoda says the extra bed setting doesn't take effect until that price is set.

• Every site shows the same single and double prices for the same room and night, and your website matches them.
• The room's maximum guests, beds and extra beds are the same on every site.
• Children's ages and charges are the same everywhere, and written plainly.
• The single price makes sense to business travellers on their own, who book often and say in reviews whether they had value.
• When you compare your price with a competitor's, compare the same occupancy: a double against a double.