Hotel Glossary

Turkey's accommodation tax (konaklama vergisi) is a tax charged on overnight accommodation services at hotels and similar establishments, calculated on the price excluding VAT. The general rate is 2%; it is being applied at 1% from May 1 to December 31, 2026.

ADR (Average Daily Rate) is the average room revenue earned per room night sold, calculated by dividing total room revenue by the number of room nights sold.

All Inclusive (AI) is a board type in which the rate includes accommodation, all meals, snacks between meals and specified drinks.

An allotment is a block of rooms that a hotel sets aside for a travel agency or tour operator to sell for specific dates.

ALOS (Average Length of Stay) is the average number of nights guests stay at a hotel, calculated by dividing total room nights sold by the number of reservations.

BAR (Best Available Rate) is the lowest flexible (cancellable) room rate publicly available for a given date.

Bed and Breakfast (BB) is a board type in which the rate includes accommodation plus breakfast.

A booking engine is software embedded in the hotel's own website that lets guests check availability and book directly with online payment.

A channel manager is software that distributes a hotel's rates and availability from a single place to all its online sales channels, such as Booking.com and Expedia, and delivers incoming reservations to the hotel.

The city ledger is the ledger that holds the accounts receivable of companies, agencies and institutions that are not staying at the hotel but owe it money.

A comp (complimentary) room is a room given to a guest free of charge with management approval, typically for group leaders, business partners or as compensation for a complaint.

CTA (Closed to Arrival) and CTD (Closed to Departure) are selling restrictions that block arrivals or departures on a given date, while stays that begin on another date can still continue through that day.

Day use is the sale of a room for a few hours during the day, without an overnight stay.

A direct booking is a commission-free reservation that a guest makes through the hotel's own website, phone, email or WhatsApp line, without an intermediary channel.

Dynamic pricing means updating room rates frequently based on demand, occupancy, booking window and competitor prices, instead of using fixed seasonal rates.

Early check-in lets a guest into the room before the standard check-in time, and late check-out lets the guest stay in the room after the standard check-out time. Hotels offer them free of charge, for a fee, or subject to availability.

A forecast is an advance estimate of occupancy and revenue for future dates, based on reservations on the books, historical data and booking pace.

Full Board (FB) is a board type in which the rate includes accommodation, breakfast, lunch and dinner.

A GDS (Global Distribution System) is a global reservation network, such as Amadeus, Sabre or Travelport, that travel agencies and corporate travel companies use to book hotels, flights and rental cars.

GOPPAR (Gross Operating Profit Per Available Room) is a profitability metric calculated by dividing the hotel's gross operating profit by the number of room nights available.

A group booking is a reservation of multiple rooms at once for the same organization, typically 5–10 rooms or more.

A guaranteed reservation is a booking secured by a credit card, prepayment or company guarantee, so that the hotel can charge a set amount even if the guest does not arrive.

Guest feedback is the collection and management of the requests, complaints and opinions guests share during or after their stay.

A guest folio is the account statement that records a guest's room charges, food and beverage and other charges, along with the payments made, throughout the stay.

A guest profile is a single record that holds a guest's contact details, past stays, spending, preferences and special notes.

Half Board (HB) is a board type in which the rate includes accommodation, breakfast and one main meal, usually dinner.

A hotel voucher is a document issued by a travel agency or tour operator that confirms the reservation it made on the guest's behalf and states who will pay for which services.

Housekeeping is the hotel department responsible for cleaning and maintaining guest rooms and public areas and for keeping room statuses up to date.

KBS (Kimlik Bildirim Sistemi) is the electronic system through which accommodation establishments in Turkey report their guests' identity details and check-ins/check-outs to the law enforcement unit responsible for their area (the Police or the Gendarmerie).

Minimum length of stay (MinLOS) is a selling restriction that sets the minimum number of nights a reservation must have on specific dates.

A net rate is the price a hotel gives an agency, which the agency marks up with its own margin before selling; with a commissionable rate, the agency sells at the hotel's price and the hotel pays the agency a commission on the sale.

The night audit is the process that closes the hotel's business day: room charges are posted to guest accounts (folios), the day's transactions are checked, and the hotel's business date is rolled forward to the next day.

A no-show is a guest with a reservation who never arrives at the hotel and does not cancel.

A non-refundable rate is a discounted room rate, lower than the flexible rate, for which payment is not returned if the guest cancels or changes the booking.

Occupancy rate is the percentage of available room nights that were sold in a given period, calculated by dividing room nights sold by room nights available. It shows how much of the hotel's capacity is being used.

An OTA (Online Travel Agency) is an online agency, such as Booking.com, Expedia, Hotels.com or the sites that metasearch engines like Trivago refer to, that sells hotel rooms over the internet in exchange for a commission.

Overbooking is when a hotel accepts more reservations for a given date than it has rooms available. It can be a deliberate strategy or the result of a channel synchronization error.

Pickup is the number of new reservations (in room nights) added for a future date over a given period of time; it shows how quickly demand is coming in.

A PMS (Property Management System) is the core software that runs a hotel's daily operations, including reservations, the room plan, check-in/check-out, guest accounts, housekeeping and reporting.

The rack rate is the official, undiscounted maximum published price for a room.

Rate parity means a hotel shows the same rate on all of its sales channels for the same room, the same dates and the same conditions.

The release period is the number of days before the arrival date by which an agency must return unsold allotment rooms to the hotel.

Revenue management is the practice of maximizing hotel revenue by selling the right room to the right guest, at the right time, through the right channel, at the right price.

RevPAR (Revenue Per Available Room) is the room revenue earned per available room night. It is calculated by dividing total room revenue by room nights available, or by multiplying ADR by the occupancy rate.

A room night is the unit of measure for one room sold or occupied for one night. A group staying 3 nights in 2 rooms accounts for 6 room nights.

Room Only (RO) is a board type in which the rate covers accommodation only, with no breakfast or meals included.

Room status shows a room's current cleaning and sales condition: occupied, vacant clean, vacant dirty, inspected, OOO (out of order, cannot be sold) or OOS (out of service, temporarily unavailable).

A rooming list is a list of names for a group or agency booking showing which guest will stay in which room, with whom and on which dates.

A stop sale is an instruction from the hotel to its sales channels and agencies to stop accepting new reservations for specific dates or room types.

TRevPAR (Total Revenue Per Available Room) is the hotel's total revenue from rooms, food and beverage, spa and all other sources, divided by the number of room nights available.

Upselling is the practice of increasing revenue per guest by offering a higher room category or additional services during booking or at check-in.

A walk-in is a guest who arrives at the hotel without a prior reservation and asks for a room.