Hotel Revenue Glossary · Pricing

Sell-Through

A restriction requiring that a guest arriving on a specific date must also stay through a subsequent date. For example, a sell-through on Friday requires any Friday arrival to also book Saturday night.

Why it matters: Sell-through controls protect shoulder nights by ensuring guests arriving before a peak date also occupy the peak date. This maximizes occupancy on the most valuable nights while building inventory from adjacent dates.

Worked example: A 140-room hotel holds 30 rooms for Friday and only 8 for Saturday. Apply a sell-through on Friday: every new Friday arrival must also take Saturday. Eight of those Friday rooms convert to two-night stays at A$210 — 16 room nights, A$3,360, half of it landing on the Saturday that had nowhere else to go. The other 22 Friday rooms stay unsold. You traded 22 one-night possibilities for a Saturday that closes at rate.

Common mistake: Applying sell-through to dates that are already selling well on their own. If Saturday would have filled anyway, the restriction only blocks Friday one-nighters you could have banked. Sell-through earns its keep when the later night is genuinely tight and the earlier night has surplus — check both before you set it.

All glossary terms MLOS (Minimum Length of Stay) CTA (Closed to Arrival) Length of Stay (LOS)