Hostel Calculations / Reporting (e.g. RevPAR)

Hi Tom,

As you mentioned, RevPAR doesn’t really work quite as well in hostels as it does in hotels. You could calculate RevPAB (Revenue Per Available Bed) instead.

Some hostels charge a different price for single and double occupancy in a private room. I charge the same for one or two people, because the room can’t be booked by someone else and because it costs me the same to clean it and wash the sheets. If the price is the same for single or double occupancy, then the revenue stays even for that bed regardless of how many guests are in it. If you charge different prices, then your RevPAB will simply drop a little bit every time you sell the room as a single.

For occupancy rates it might help you to calculate your dormitories and private rooms separately in order to compare apples to apples. When I calculate my overall occupancy for dorms and privates together, then I consider a private room to be two beds in my total available bed count (as if everything in the hostel were a dorm room).

As far as other metrics go, here are some ideas from other people:

This article lists some Key Performance Indicators for hostels:

• Overnights: number people that stayed the night.
• Bednights: number of beds used during the night.
• (Bed) Occupancy: beds used as a percentage of available bednights
• ABP – Average Bed Price: Average price paid per bed for a specific period
• REVPAB – Revenue per Available Bed : Bed revenue as a ratio of available bednights
• TREVPAB – Total Revenue per Available Bed : Total guest spend per overnight as a ratio of available bednights. (including revenue from the bar/restaurant/laundry/tours/etc.)

In another thread these metrics were also suggested:

• Customer satisfaction score
• Monthly expenses
• Rate of staff turnover

Here’s another thread with some more metrics:

• Total profit
• Maintenance rates (how often do you have to fix the same things)

In addition to occupancy reports, Profit and Loss reports, and RevPAB reports, some hostels also run pickup reports to calculate when beds were booked. This mostly helps to calm nerves when you see that your hostel is empty two months from now, but that historically it fills up at the last minute. It can also show sales opportunities. For example, if you realize that in February there was a bump in May’s occupancy due to a group booking, you can call them again the next February to invite them back.

I'm sure that there are plenty more metrics and reports that hostels use than the ones I listed here. Hopefully someone else will fill in the holes with the ones that they find useful.