Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR): Hotel Room Revenue and Capacity

Revenue per available room, commonly abbreviated RevPAR, measures room revenue generated per room available for sale during a period.

A common formula is:

1RevPAR = Room Revenue ÷ Available Room Nights

With consistent definitions, the same result can also be expressed as:

1RevPAR = Average Daily Rate × Occupancy Rate

That bridge makes RevPAR useful because it combines two different hotel operating levers: the price earned on occupied rooms and the share of available capacity that is sold.

Why RevPAR matters

A hotel can grow room revenue by charging more, filling more rooms, or doing both. RevPAR puts those effects on the same available-room denominator.

Consider a 100-room hotel operating for one night:

1Average Daily Rate: $200
2Occupancy:            75%
3RevPAR:              $150

If ADR rises to $210 while occupancy stays at 75%, RevPAR rises to $157.50. If ADR stays at $200 but occupancy rises to 80%, RevPAR rises to $160.

The same RevPAR growth rate can therefore describe very different operating changes.

Rate-driven and occupancy-driven growth are not economically identical

A dollar of RevPAR gained through higher room rates can have a different margin effect from a dollar gained through higher occupancy.

Hyatt explicitly notes this distinction in its public metric definitions. Higher occupancy can bring additional variable costs such as housekeeping, utilities, and room amenities, while rate changes typically have less direct effect on those variable room costs.

That does not mean ADR growth is always superior. A hotel with weak occupancy may need volume, and higher occupancy can also support ancillary food, beverage, parking, resort, or other guest revenue. The point is that investors should inspect the RevPAR bridge rather than treating every percentage point of growth as economically interchangeable.

RevPAR is not total hotel revenue

RevPAR is a room-revenue measure.

It ordinarily excludes non-room revenue such as:

• food and beverage;
• parking;
• resort fees depending on classification;
• spa and recreation;
• meeting and event revenue; and
• other guest services.

A full-service resort can therefore generate materially different total economics from a limited-service hotel even when both report similar RevPAR.

RevPAR also should not be confused with a hotel operator's consolidated revenue. Asset-light hotel companies can earn management, franchise, licensing, credit-card, and reimbursement revenue that does not move one-for-one with property-level RevPAR.

Comparable RevPAR needs a comparable property set

Hotel companies frequently report RevPAR for a comparable system or portfolio.

That cohort may exclude newly opened hotels, recently acquired or disposed properties, hotels under major renovation, properties affected by ownership changes, or hotels that otherwise fail an issuer's comparability rules.

A company can therefore report positive comparable RevPAR while total system room revenue moves differently because the hotel base expanded or contracted.

Always preserve:

• comparable versus total system scope;
• managed, franchised, owned, or leased status;
• brand and chain scale;
• geography;
• currency treatment;
• room inventory changes;
• renovation or closure treatment; and
• the measurement period.

RevPAR growth is not automatically organic company revenue growth

For an asset-light lodging company, RevPAR is an important operating driver, but it is only one part of the earnings model.

A simplified relationship is:

1Hotel Fee Growth
2≈ Existing-Hotel Operating Growth
3+ Net Rooms Growth
4+ Fee-Rate / Mix Changes
5+ Other Fee Streams

Net Rooms Growth can expand the fee base even when comparable RevPAR is flat. Conversely, strong RevPAR can support fee growth even with little system expansion.

The relationship is not mechanical because Hotel Management Fees and Hotel Franchise Fees can use different contractual bases.

Filing examples

Marriott defines RevPAR as property-level room revenue divided by total rooms available for the period and separately defines Average Daily Rate and Hotel Occupancy Rate as the two components of the calculation. Hyatt likewise defines RevPAR as ADR multiplied by average daily occupancy and emphasizes that RevPAR excludes non-room revenue.

Sources:

• Marriott International 2025 Form 10-K
• Hilton Worldwide Holdings 2025 Form 10-K
• Hyatt Hotels 2025 Form 10-K
• Hyatt 2026 First-Quarter Earnings Release

Bottom line

RevPAR is a hotel room-revenue productivity measure, not total hotel revenue, consolidated company revenue, or profit. Read it together with ADR, occupancy, comparable-property scope, geography, ownership model, room growth, and ancillary revenue before comparing lodging companies.

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