Your competitors’ occupancy

Every agency analyzes your hotel’s data. It is natural: it is the data they have. But the rate decision does not depend only on what you sold, but on what the ones next door are selling, and almost nobody looks at that data because they think it cannot be obtained. It can. We measure it every day, with our own tool, for every property we operate.

Where the data comes from

From public availability. Booking, Expedia and direct booking engines show how many rooms are left for a date. If you know how many the hotel has in total —a figure that is on its own listing, its site or the tourism registry—, the difference is the estimated occupancy:

Estimated occupancy = (total rooms − available rooms) ÷ total rooms

A 16-room hotel with 3 available for Saturday is at roughly 81%. It is not exact: it may have inventory closed on that channel, or a room out of service. But measured every day, the error is stable and the trend is real, and what decides the rate is the trend.

How we do it

A program visits each competitor’s listing on its main channel every day —Booking for most, the direct engine when Booking does not show the full inventory—, reads the availability for the coming weeks and stores it with the measurement date. Over time, every night has a curve: how it filled up as it got closer.

That allows answering questions a monthly report cannot:

• How fast is next weekend filling up, at my hotel and at the ones next door?
• Did my neighbor raise the rate when they passed 70%?
• Which nights always fill up in the destination, without anyone announcing them?

What is seen in Guatapé

In March 2026, the measurement of the Guatapé competitive set —six properties— for the following thirteen nights showed the pattern that repeats in almost every weekend destination: Friday and Saturday between 66 and 70% estimated occupancy, Monday and Tuesday around 30%. The figure is on our homepage with its date.

The interesting part is not the pattern; it is what a hotel does with it. If on Saturday the destination is at 70% and you are at 50%, you do not have a demand problem: you have a choice problem. Cutting the rate fills you with the guest who was going to come anyway. Looking at why they choose you less —position in the channel, photos, conditions, recent reviews— is where the money is.

What to do with the data

Three simple rules we apply:

1. When the neighbor fills up, you raise. If the competitive set passes 70% for a date and you still have inventory, that date is worth more than you are charging.
2. When the neighbor does not fill up, you do not cut by reflex. If nobody is filling up, a discount does not create demand; it only splits the same demand at a lower price.
3. When you fill up and the neighbor does not, review the rate upwards before celebrating. Filling up first usually means you are cheaper than necessary.

Why almost no agency does it

Because it is engineering work, not marketing: you have to build the tool, maintain it when the channels change and know how to read the data. Most revenue management agencies work with the data the hotel gives them. We measure the ones next door, and that is why “do you know what occupancy your competitors are running?” is one of the questions in the diagnostic.