GLOSSARY
Hotel and Homestay Booking Terms, Explained Simply
Plain English explanations of the booking, revenue and compliance words that show up on every vendor call, written for Indian property owners who would rather run their property than decode jargon.
If you have sat through a sales call and nodded along to words like channel manager, RevPAR or rate parity without being fully sure what they meant, you are in good company. Most hotel and homestay owners in India learn this vocabulary on the job, one confusing vendor pitch at a time, and nobody ever sits them down to explain it properly.
This glossary is our attempt to do exactly that. Every term below is explained the way we would explain it to a friend who runs a six room homestay in Coorg or a twelve room hotel near a highway in Maharashtra, in plain language, with real Indian numbers and real Indian context, not textbook definitions copied from a software company’s website in another country. Each term links through to a full page that goes deeper, with examples, comparisons and answers to the questions owners actually ask.
Booking & Distribution
Booking
Booking Engine
The software that lets a guest check availability and pay online, directly on your own website or link, without an OTA in between.
Booking
Online Travel Agency (OTA)
Platforms like the big listing sites that bring guests to your property in exchange for a commission on every booking.
Booking
Direct Booking
Any reservation that comes to you without a middleman taking a cut, whether by phone, WhatsApp, website, or a guest walking in.
Booking
Zero-Commission Booking
A booking model where the property keeps the full room revenue, and the software is paid for by subscription or a small usage fee instead of a percentage cut.
Booking
Booking Link
A single shareable web address that opens your booking engine, so a guest can reserve a room from a WhatsApp message, Instagram bio, or Google listing.
Booking
Instant Booking
A booking that confirms itself the moment a guest pays online, with no manual approval needed from the property.
Booking
Request to Book
A booking flow where the guest sends a request first, and the property owner accepts, adjusts, or declines it before payment is collected.
Booking
Group Booking
A reservation covering multiple rooms for one group arriving together, usually with a single point of contact and its own rate.
Booking
Corporate Booking
A booking made under a negotiated company rate, usually billed to a business account rather than paid directly by the traveller.
Booking
Metasearch
A search engine like Google Hotel Ads or Trivago that compares your rates across every channel and sends the guest to whichever one they click.
Property & Revenue Management
Revenue
Property Management System (PMS)
The back office software that tracks rooms, guests, check-ins and housekeeping for a hotel or homestay, day to day.
Revenue
Channel Manager
The connector software that updates your rates and availability across every OTA and booking channel at the same time, so you never get double booked.
Revenue
Room Inventory
The count of rooms or beds you have available to sell on any given night, across every channel you list on.
Revenue
Rate Plan
A defined package of price and conditions for a room, such as a refundable rate, a non-refundable rate, or a breakfast-included rate.
Revenue
Dynamic Pricing
Adjusting your room rates up or down based on demand, season, and how full you already are, instead of charging one fixed price all year.
Revenue
Occupancy Rate
The percentage of your available rooms that were actually sold and occupied over a given period.
Revenue
Average Daily Rate (ADR)
The average price you actually earned per occupied room in a given period, after discounts.
Revenue
Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR)
The single number that combines occupancy and rate together, showing how much revenue every room in your property earned on average, sold or not.
Revenue
Revenue Management
The ongoing practice of adjusting rates and availability based on demand, so you sell the right room to the right guest at the right price.
Rates & Pricing
Pricing
Best Available Rate (BAR)
The lowest unrestricted rate a property is currently offering for a room, and the anchor every other channel’s price gets compared against.
Pricing
Rate Parity
Keeping the same room rate across every channel, so no OTA or wholesaler can consistently undercut your own direct price.
Pricing
Net Rate
The amount a property actually receives after commission or markup is deducted, as opposed to the higher figure the guest paid.
Pricing
Gross Rate
The full amount a guest actually pays for a booking, before any commission, markup, or wholesaler margin is taken out of it.
Pricing
Non-Refundable Rate
A discounted rate a guest pays upfront in exchange for giving up the right to a refund if they cancel or don’t show up.
Pricing
Seasonal Pricing
Raising or lowering rates to match predictable seasonal demand, from wedding season peaks to monsoon lulls.
Pricing
Booking Window
The gap between when a guest books and when they actually arrive, which shapes how far in advance you should plan pricing.
Pricing
Minimum Stay
A rule requiring guests to book at least a set number of nights, often used to protect availability during high-demand periods.
Pricing
Length of Stay
How many nights a guest books in one reservation, a number that shapes pricing, housekeeping load, and channel strategy alike.
Front Desk & Guest Operations
Operations
No-Show
A confirmed guest who never arrives and never cancels, leaving the room empty and the revenue unclaimed unless a no-show policy applies.
Operations
Overbooking
Deliberately selling more rooms than you have, betting that cancellations and no-shows will even things out by check-in day.
Operations
Walk-In Guest
Someone who arrives and books a room on the spot, without any prior reservation.
Operations
Early Check-In
Letting a guest into their room before the property’s standard check-in time, whether offered freely or arranged in advance.
Operations
Late Check-Out
Letting a guest keep their room past the standard check-out time, usually for a few hours and sometimes for a small fee.
Payments
Payments
Payment Gateway
The technology that securely moves money from a guest’s card, UPI app, or net banking into your bank account when they pay online.
Payments
UPI Hotel Payment
Collecting bookings and advances through India’s UPI system, so guests can pay in seconds with any UPI app and the money lands directly with you.
Payments
Chargeback
A forced reversal of a card payment initiated by the guest’s bank after a dispute, which can claw back money you already received.
Guest Data & Compliance
Compliance
Guest CRM
A system that stores your guests’ contact details and stay history, so you can recognise repeat guests and invite them back directly.
Compliance
Form C
The mandatory report every hotel and homestay must file with the FRRO whenever a foreign national checks in.
Compliance
Digital Guest Register
An electronic version of the guest register every property is legally required to maintain, replacing the handwritten ledger at the front desk.
Compliance
Star Rating
Either the official classification awarded by the Ministry of Tourism, or the average guest review score shown on OTAs, two different things that share one name.
This glossary covers booking, revenue and payment terms. For compliance and regulatory guides, visit our Resources section. For a look at how OpenStays brings many of these pieces together in one dashboard, see the Product page.