Revenue generation index (RGI): your RevPAR against your competitors'

HSMAI's glossary calls RGI the ratio of a hotel's RevPAR to the RevPAR of its competitive set, and notes it was formerly known as the RevPAR index. An index of 100 means the hotel is performing at the same level as the set: its fair share.

• 100: each of your rooms brought in the same, on average, as each of your competitors' rooms.
• Above 100: yours brought in more. 110 means a tenth more.
• Below 100: yours brought in less. 90 means a tenth less.

EHL Hospitality Business School calls RGI the most complete of the comparisons with your competitors, and says owners and asset managers watch its trend to judge whether a hotel is well managed.

1. 1Choose the period and the competitors, and keep both the same from one month to the next.
2. 2Work out your RevPAR: room revenue, without tax, divided by rooms available.
3. 3Work out your competitors' RevPAR as one group: all their room revenue added together, divided by all their rooms available added together.
4. 4Divide your RevPAR by theirs and multiply by 100. If you already have your market penetration index and average rate index, multiply them and divide by 100: the answer is the same.

The calculator on this page opens on the same month. Put in your own RevPAR and your competitors' to see yours.

So when your RGI moves, look at which of the other two moved with it. A falling RGI with a falling occupancy index is a problem of being found and chosen; with a falling rate index it is a problem of price.

Choose the hotels a guest choosing you would also look at: alike in place, price, kind of hotel and the guests they aim for. HSMAI's glossary warns that a poorly chosen set leads to wrong conclusions, and a set picked to make you look good does exactly that.

• STR, now part of CoStar, works out RGI for hotels that send their own figures, against a set of competitors they choose. EHL Hospitality Business School says STR recommends at least five hotels in a set, that hotels of all sizes can take part, and that the price is a quote from CoStar.
• Without STR, there is no exact RGI: it needs your competitors' room revenue and rooms, which only they and STR have. Their prices for the coming nights on Google and the booking sites, and the nights they show no price and look full, show how your price and your full nights compare, which are the two halves of RGI.

• Read the trend, not one month. EHL Hospitality Business School calls a steady slide over three months a signal worth looking into.
• When RGI falls, check whether the occupancy index or the rate index fell, and work on that one.
• RGI below 100 at weekends and above it on weekdays: your weekend prices, or your place in the booking sites' lists at weekends, need work.
• RGI above 100: check GOPPAR as well, to see that the revenue came at a profit, and check how much of it came through booking sites at a commission.
• Hold an RGI at 100 or above in a quiet month and you kept your share while the town was slow: hold your prices rather than cut them.

• Anything beyond the rooms. Food, drink and events are outside it, as EHL notes they are outside STR's reports.
• Profit. An RGI above 100 bought with heavy commission or discounts can still lower your gross operating profit.
• What to charge next Saturday. EHL says STR's weekly figures arrive a week or more after the week ends, so RGI tells you what happened. Your competitors' prices for the coming nights are the guide to what comes next.
• Anything at all if the set is wrong.