How hotel owners talk about it

If you own or run an independent hotel, motel or inn, you have heard most of these. If you are thinking about buying one, this is what you will hear soon enough. Each is explained in plain words.

These are common phrases, and how people use them varies. They describe how owners feel about their hotels, not any one brand.

Money

Bought myself a job: I meant to make an investment, but the hotel needs me so much that it works like a job, and a hard one.
Getting killed on labor: Wages and hours eat so much of every revenue dollar that very little is left for the owner.
Occupancy: The share of your rooms that are rented. If 68 of 100 rooms are filled on a night, occupancy is 68%.
ADR (average daily rate): What a rented room earns on average for a night. Revenue from rooms divided by rooms rented.
RevPAR: Revenue per available room. Occupancy times average rate. It shows how hard each room, rented or empty, is working.
RevPAR index: Your RevPAR compared with nearby competing hotels. Above 100 means you beat them. Below 100 means they beat you.
GOP (gross operating profit): What the hotel earns after running costs, before the owner's mortgage, taxes and return.
OTA commissions: Online travel sites keep a slice of each booking they send you, often fifteen to twenty percent. Owners feel it on every night sold that way.
Thin margins: A small gap between what comes in and what goes out, so one slow month can erase the profit.
Keeping the lights on: The hotel earns just enough to pay its bills and the owner gets little or nothing.

People and the daily grind

Housekeeping turnover: Room attendants quit about as fast as they are hired, so rooms are late and the owner is always training.
Front desk churn: The people guests meet first keep changing, so the service guests remember keeps changing too.
Night audit: The overnight shift that closes the day's books and watches the property. Hard to staff, and hard to supervise from afar.
No-call, no-show: A staff member who simply does not come in and does not say why.
Slammed: Far busier than the staff on the schedule can handle, such as a full house with two people out.
Dead shift: Slow hours that still have to be staffed and paid for.
Absentee owner: The owner does not live near the hotel, or is not there much, and relies on others to protect the money.
Living on the property: The owner or manager lives on site because nobody else will hold it together.

The brand

Flag: The franchise brand on the sign. A flagged hotel pays for the name and must follow its rules. An independent has no flag.
PIP (property improvement plan): A list of renovations the brand requires, on its schedule, at the owner's cost.
Brand standards: The brand's rules for rooms, breakfast, signs and service. Owners pay to keep up whether or not it helps their own hotel.
Off the top: Fees the brand takes before the owner sees anything. Royalties and marketing fees are usually a percent of revenue, so they are owed even in a month the hotel loses money.
Junk fees: What some owners call small recurring charges, such as reservation, software and technology fees, that add up and were not clear when they signed.
Comp set: The group of nearby hotels you measure yourself against.
Hostage to the flag: The owner wants out, but transfer approval, exit fees and the franchise agreement make it hard to leave or sell.

Reviews and demand

Review slide: Guest scores drift down, bookings follow, and the owner has to cut rates to fill rooms.
Giving away rate: Cutting the nightly price to fill rooms until the hotel is busy but not profitable.
Shoulder season: The weeks between your busy and slow seasons.
New supply: A new hotel opens nearby and takes some of your guests.
Deferred maintenance: Repairs put off to save cash. They come due later, usually all at once.

Hearing yourself in this list? That is the problem Hotel Ops Market was built for. Post your hotel and let a vetted operator who loves this work bid to earn your return.