Most independent hotels forecast in a spreadsheet, without a revenue management system. The method is the same one large chains use. What changes is the number of segments you can realistically handle, not the maths.

We have written that method down in full: sixteen modules across four parts, with an Excel template of twelve sheets that has the formulas already built. Both are free. This article is the map, so you know exactly what is inside before you spend any time on it.

Three acronyms first, because they appear in every report in this industry: OTB (on the books, what you hold right now), LY (last year) and STLY (same time last year, read at the same lead time).

What should a hotel forecast include?

A complete hotel forecast covers four things in order. First, foundations: the difference between a budget, which is fixed once a year, and a forecast, which moves every week, plus the four figures per day you need and how to clean them. Second, segmentation: splitting demand by segment, channel with net ADR rather than gross, room type and lead time, because the total hides where the problem actually is. Third, projection: a demand calendar that flags where last year stops being comparable, the core formula Forecast = OTB + (Closing LY - OTB STLY) applied to roomnights and ADR, groups projected on what gets occupied rather than what gets blocked, cancellations and no-shows netted off, and consolidation up to RevPAR and TRevPAR. Fourth, decision: turning the projection into a lever you actually pull, and checking afterwards whether you were right.

Part 1. Foundations

Module 1. What a forecast is, and what it is not. The budget is approved in September or October and stays fixed. It is the reference you are measured against. The forecast moves every week with real data, and its job is to warn you, early enough to act, that the budget will not be met or that it will be beaten. A forecast that never moves is not a forecast.

Module 2. The data you need, and cleaning it first. Four figures per day: current OTB, OTB STLY, last year's closing figure and budget. Before projecting anything you clean the base, because a history full of unreal group blocks and no-shows produces a projection that inherits every one of those errors.

Part 2. Segment before you project

Module 3. Segmentation. The taxonomy the industry actually uses, splitting demand into Transient, Groups and Others, and the yieldability of each: what you can move on price, what you can move a little, and what you cannot move at all.

Module 4. Channels. Mix, net ADR rather than gross, and cost of acquisition per channel. This is not an accounting exercise. It is how you decide where to push when the total is behind, instead of dropping your rate across the board.

Module 5. Room types. The four differential methods, and why the lever is availability rather than price. Forecasting only total rooms hides the most common problem in independent hotels: selling out the cheapest room type on every peak and leaving the expensive ones empty.

Module 6. Lead time. The booking curve by segment, in brackets, so you know whether a quiet date is a problem or simply has not arrived yet.

Part 3. Project

Module 7. The demand calendar: when last year lies to you. Three cases break the comparison, and none of them warn you. A new event that your history does not contain. An event that has moved away, which is the most expensive of the three because nobody looks for it. And a holiday that falls in a different week, because two months with the same name may not hold the same Fridays and Saturdays. From this comes the rule repeated throughout the guide: comparisons are made day of the week against day of the week, never date against date.

Module 8. The core formula, applied by segment. Forecast = OTB + (Closing LY - OTB STLY), applied separately to roomnights and to ADR. A worked example on ADR: OTB today is 84, last year at the same point you held 90, and you closed at 101. Expected pickup is 11, so the ADR forecast is 95.

Module 9. Groups. A group block is not a booking. It is a probability with an expiry date, and projecting it as if it were money is the fastest way to turn a month that looked fine on paper into a bad close.

Module 10. Cancellations, no-shows and overbooking. In module 2 you cleaned them out of your history. Here you project them, which is a different job, and it is what turns a gross OTB into a figure you can trust. Your overbooking level falls out of the same calculation.

Module 11. Consolidating up to RevPAR. Weighted ADR, occupancy against real capacity, and RevPAR decomposed into its two drivers so you can say which one moved.

Module 12. From RevPAR to TRevPAR. If you have a restaurant, a spa or parking, RevPAR falls short of answering an owner. Ancillary hangs directly off rooms sold, so it is not a new exercise.

Module 13. Pickup and pace. Two dated photographs of your OTB for the same stay date. It is the fastest demand thermometer you have, and the one that tells you something is wrong while there is still time.

Module 14. How many rooms will I sell, and at what rate? The question an owner actually asks, with a defensible answer: last year's closing figure for the same weekday, minus today's OTB, capped at the rooms you genuinely have left.

Part 4. Act and check

Module 15. From projection to decision. A forecast that does not end in a decision is an expensive spreadsheet. MLOS, opening and closing room types, rate plans, CTA and CTD, and promotions treated as a what-if. With one guardrail: do not launch high planning to come down.

Module 16. Checking whether it was right. A forecast you never check is an opinion. Your own bias shows up within three months, and it is always in the same direction.

The Excel template: twelve sheets

You only fill in the cream cells. Nothing is hardcoded by property: inventory, segments and commissions live in one sheet and everything else reads from there.

  • READ ME. How to use it, in order.
  • PARAMETERS. Inventory, rooms out of order, currency, segments, channels and commissions. Every other sheet reads from here.
  • DEMAND CALENDAR. Day type, event, whether it existed last year, the comparable LY date, a day-of-week check and the adjustment percentage.
  • DAILY FORECAST. OTB roomnights, revenue and ADR, STLY, last year's close, expected pickup and the resulting forecast, day by day.
  • GROUPS. Blocked roomnights, probability of conversion, wash percentage, expected roomnights and revenue, and the cut-off date.
  • CANCELLATIONS AND OVERBOOKING. Your own rates calculated from PMS history, then the rate you decide to use, and the overbooking level that follows.
  • WEEKLY PICKUP. The two photographs and the difference between them, in roomnights and in revenue.
  • BY CHANNEL. Net ADR, gap against STLY, progress percentage and the proposed action per channel.
  • BY ROOM TYPE. Differentials, which type sells out first, and occupancy on the peak dates.
  • ANCILLARY AND TREVPAR. F&B and other ratios per room sold, carried through to total revenue.
  • PROJECTED CLOSE. Two scenarios, base and pickup twenty percent weaker, because a range with its assumption stated is defensible and a single confident number is not.
  • ACCURACY. Forecast against actual, the error and its direction, month by month.

Getting both

The guide and the template are free, in English and in Spanish. You leave an email and both files are yours immediately, no waiting.

Download the guide and the Excel template

This content was created with the help of artificial intelligence and reviewed by Rafael Osborne (Profit Guest Services) before publishing.

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Note: this article is published in English. The Spanish version is written but not published yet.