The State of Revenue Management 2026
450 hoteliers told us how they really price their rooms. Now you can see where you stand.
What does revenue management look like in 2026?
Better data and more accessible technology have put revenue management within reach of more hotels. But rising costs, tighter margins and guests booking closer to their stay haven’t made pricing decisions any easier.
Getting the rate right is only part of the picture. How does pricing connect to your marketing, sales and wider business goals? And how are other hoteliers making that work?
That’s why we created The State of Revenue Management in Hospitality 2026. We asked 450 hoteliers across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific how they manage revenue today—from who makes the decisions to how they use data and technology.
Whether you’re new to revenue management or have been doing it for years, the report helps you see where you stand and choose what to do next.
Hotel revenue management in 2026: moving from setting rates to shaping strategy, with room to grow.
85% of hoteliers say revenue management is essential to profitability. Just 21% run it at a strategic level. What sets them apart isn't size or location. It's commercial alignment.
Technology is moving faster than trust. 53% already use AI to support revenue management, but only 10% fully trust it and rely on it for most pricing decisions.
70% of hoteliers say revenue management expertise is growing across the industry. But finding the right people is another story: 47% of those hiring struggle to find qualified candidates, and 29% say applicants don’t fully understand what the role involves today. The role has moved on. The talent pool is still catching up.

Revenue management is becoming increasingly indispensable and that trend is only speeding up. There are more channels than ever, from OTAs and metasearch to TikTok and AI search, and more competition for every booking. Getting your pricing and profitability right is how you protect your business.
Chas Scarantino,
CEO, RoomPriceGenie
Four tiers of revenue management. Each one has its superpower.
We grouped all 450 hoteliers into four tiers based on what they told us about their revenue management practice. Those tiers predicted far more than we expected, from how often hoteliers revisit strategy to how much they trust AI. Size and location play a part, but they don't decide your tier. So, which one are you?
Find your stage in 3 minutesInstinct-driven
Pricing runs on experience and gut instinct.
- How prices are set
- By hand, on experience, gut feel or fixed seasonal rates
- Main tool
- Experience and local know-how
- Superpower
- You know your hotel and market by heart
Structured
Pricing follows a process, but automation is limited.
- How prices are set
- Reviewed regularly with spreadsheets and past performance
- Main tool
- Spreadsheets
- Superpower
- Discipline and a routine you stick to
System-assisted
An RMS supports your pricing, though standardization is often still catching up.
- How prices are set
- A revenue management system updates rates and informs decisions
- Main tool
- RMS, 3.7 years on average
- Superpower
- Prices that keep up, even on busy days
Strategic
Revenue management runs as one commercial plan, shared across teams, with forecasts for more than one scenario.
- How prices are set
- One commercial plan: profit-focused, cross-team, built on scenario forecasts
- Main tool
- RMS, 4.3 years on average, plus a shared forecast
- Superpower
- Everyone pulls toward profit, not just full rooms
How does your pricing stack up?
Find out in 3 minutes.
Ever wondered how your pricing compares to hotels like yours? Answer these questions and see where you stand next to 450 hoteliers.
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Every pricing decision works harder when it's tied to something bigger.
Picture two hotels on the same street, of similar size and welcoming similar guests. From the outside, you can’t tell them apart. Inside, one sets its rates on experience and gut feel. The other connects pricing to the bigger picture: which guests to attract, what profit to aim for, and how each team helps make it happen. Most hoteliers want to be the second hotel: 85% call revenue management essential to profitability. Yet only 21% say they practice it at a strategic level. Here’s what they do differently.
run revenue management as a real strategy, tied to marketing, sales and profit.
RevPAR lost its crown
Just 12% name RevPAR as their most important number, and EBITDA now edges ahead. Profit is on people's minds. It just isn't on the dashboard yet.
Profit shows up as you grow
GOPPAR tracking climbs from 15% of Instinct-driven hotels to 43% of Strategic ones. The more mature the approach, the more visible the profit.
What hoteliers track vs what matters most
Ask hoteliers which numbers they keep an eye on, and revenue, occupancy, and ADR lead the way. Profit measures like EBITDA and GOPPAR, the ones that get closer to what’s left after costs, sit further down the list. But ask what matters most, and the picture changes. EBITDA climbs from sixth to third, ahead of RevPAR, while ADR drops from third to sixth.
Many hotels have added TRevPAR or GOPPAR to their reporting decks over the past few years, but for many, it remains something 'exotic', as their daily stand-up conversations still default to ADR and occupancy. ADR is easy to benchmark against the Comp Set and easy to defend in a meeting with senior management. For that to shift, market benchmarking should evolve and include TRevPAR or GOPPAR instead.

Torres Hospitality Consulting
Many hotels still practice revenue management too sporadically: prices get adjusted when occupancy looks off, instead of continuously analyzing demand, pickup, segments, and distribution. The data is usually there, but time, clear processes, and the routine to consistently turn it into action are often missing. Experience and gut feeling remain important, but they should complement decisions, not replace systematic analysis.

Revenue Management Expert, SHS Academy
The most automated hotels think about pricing twice as often.
Most hoteliers feel good about their pricing: 82% say they have strong revenue management skills, and 79% believe they're getting the most from their rooms. So, how often do they step back and check the strategy behind it? Only 36% do it monthly or more. One in four does it twice a year or less.
Hotels with the most automation review their pricing strategy twice as often as hotels pricing on gut feel (47% vs 24%).
Automation didn't replace their thinking. It made time for it.
Your system moves rates. You move strategy.
A system can update your prices every hour. It can't tell you if you're chasing the right guests, or if last spring's rate plan still fits. That call is yours.
The forecast paradox
Demand forecasts are the #1 influence on pricing: 52% call them very influential. Yet 58% of hoteliers only forecast quarterly or less.
Is there still room for gut feel?
Yes. It drops once a system is in place (42% to 17%), then rises again among Strategic hotels (22%). Without data, it's a guess. With good data behind it, it can be experience speaking.
The most data-driven market
87% of surveyed hoteliers in the US review pricing at least quarterly, vs 72% globally. The US also reports the lowest worry about a talent shortage: 10% vs 21% globally.
The better you get, the harder forecasting feels.
As your revenue management practice evolves, so do your questions. Across all surveyed hotels, the top four challenges are keeping up with tech, forecast accuracy, pricing across channels and reacting to competitors. Once an RMS optimizes your rates, forecast accuracy jumps to #1.
of hoteliers say their operational teams lack confidence reading revenue data.
The spreadsheet trap
Hotels on spreadsheets find it hardest to pull pricing data together. Only 18% call it quick and easy, vs 33% of gut-feel hotels and 47% of Strategic ones.
With an RMS, fewer teams struggle to read revenue data
In the first two stages, 55% say their teams struggle to read revenue data. Once a system is in place, it drops to 37%. Less decoding, more deciding.
Forecasting takes the top spot
For System-assisted and Strategic hotels, forecast accuracy is the #1 challenge (34% and 38%). Keeping up with tech drops to fourth place.
The purpose of forecasting is not necessarily to predict the future with perfect accuracy. Its real value is in understanding your business: where demand is coming from, and how revenue is developing across rooms, conferences, food and beverage, and other revenue streams. By forecasting regularly, hotel management stays closer to the business, identifying opportunities and threats early enough to act proactively rather than react when they occur.

Revfine
The revenue manager role is changing faster than the job ads.
Today, the revenue manager role covers not only pricing, but also forecasting, distribution, data, strategy and commercial thinking. 70% of hoteliers say revenue management expertise is rising across the industry. Hiring hasn't caught up.
of surveyed hoteliers struggle to find qualified candidates for revenue management roles.
The job outgrew the job description
When hiring, 29% of hoteliers say the talent pool has a limited understanding of revenue management. Salary expectations (41%) and competition for talent (37%) make it even tougher.
A team sport
At 38% of surveyed hotels, operational teams discuss revenue performance in their team meetings at least weekly. The more strategic the approach, the more hotel departments join the conversation.
This report shows that revenue management is finally accepted as a necessity. Yet the long-running ambition of 'moving from tactical to strategic' has barely progressed. The technology to support that shift already exists. What's missing is investment in people. We should also ask whether universities and hotel schools are teaching revenue management as a strategic discipline, or still focusing mainly on room pricing.

Revenue Hub
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Revenue management systems went from niche to normal.
Not long ago, revenue management systems were for bigger hotels with deep revenue management know-how. Today, 57% of the hoteliers we surveyed use one, and a third have used one for more than five years.
of surveyed hoteliers now use a revenue management system. Hotel chains lead the way at 66%.
Why hotels start using an RMS
More accurate pricing (45%), rising competition (39%) and discovering new tech (35%) are the top reasons for moving to a revenue management system.
Why others haven't switched yet
For hotels without an RMS, the top concerns are cost (46%), training (31%), wanting to keep control of pricing (31%) and complexity (27%). Properties that haven't switched yet are asking, 'Is it worth it, and will I still be in charge?
Insights where you already work
60% want revenue insights inside their property management system (PMS), not behind yet another login.
A modern PMS should be more than hotel administration: it should be the hotel’s central platform and data hub. When booking, occupancy, and availability data is exchanged in a structured way with connected solutions like RoomPriceGenie, revenue management becomes much easier, even for smaller teams. Decisions can be made faster and based on data, without creating additional manual processes. That’s exactly the connected platform approach we take with 3RPMS®.

Marketing & Communication Manager, 3RPMS®
The PMS is where revenue strategy and day-to-day hotel operations meet. Pricing and availability decisions are available to every team in real time, so the front desk can offer room upgrades and extras based on the same up-to-date information as revenue management. In many hotels, valuable time is lost because staff have to hunt for the information they need. It should come to them instead: for example, as an automatic alert to revenue management when booking pace drifts from the forecast, or as current arrival information for the front desk.

Team Lead Business Development, Apaleo
Hotels are using AI. They're just not sure they trust it.
AI arrived faster than almost any technology hospitality has seen. Hoteliers are curious and busy testing, but not quite ready to hand over the keys.
of hoteliers are using or exploring AI for revenue management. Only 11% aren't looking at it at all.
Trust grows with experience
Hotels already working with a revenue management system are far more likely to trust AI enough to rely on its recommendations.
“AI is just a multiplier of what you do: a bad employee becomes ten times the bad employee. The same logic runs the other way too. A sound strategy, run through AI, gets sharper and faster. A shaky one just gets amplified.”
Revenue management consultants at Simon-Kucher, on the Future of Hospitality podcast
Using it, not trusting it
62% of surveyed hoteliers in Spain use AI, the highest of any market. Yet 38% distrust it (vs 20% globally), and just 8% would rely on it for most pricing decisions.
Hotels need a shared strategy for revenue management, e-commerce, marketing, and distribution, built on reliable exchange between teams. When the underlying systems are connected through the right interfaces, the data flows together more easily, manual effort drops, and there's more time for well-founded decisions.

Head of Online Marketing, JF Hospitality
A well-run revenue function runs a short, focused daily meeting, about fifteen minutes, where revenue, front office, and sometimes sales look at pickup, rate, and any operational signal together.
The best revenue managers I've worked with spend real time on the floor, with reservations and front desk staff, to catch the gap between what the system says should happen and what guests are actually asking for.

Torres Hospitality Consulting
When a group is scaling, standardize with a clean, clear setup, even if it takes longer to get there. Especially early on, stay close enough to the properties to make the fine adjustments that keep it working locally.

Head of Services, b_smart services
The most sought-after skill in hotels is the ability to do more than read data: to turn it into concrete commercial decisions. That doesn't take data scientists. Teams need to understand which metrics matter, where they come from, and what actions follow from them. Trust in the RMS comes mainly from experience with it in a hotel's own operation, and it doesn't mean a loss of control: the technology handles a large share of the analysis and manual work, while people continue to set the strategy and the framework.

Revenue Management Expert, SHS Academy
From the Austrian Hotel Association’s (ÖHV) perspective, the DACH region lags behind internationally when it comes to putting revenue management into strategic practice, mainly because of the weight of day-to-day operations and the structures of owner- and family-run businesses. To close that gap and increase long-term profitability, targeted training, relief through modern, automated technology, and the right revenue management partners are the decisive next step. In times of skilled-labor shortages, technology is not just a cost factor. In many businesses it brings real financial relief in exactly the departments that steer pricing.

Austrian Hotel Association (ÖHV)
For park owners who already work from spreadsheets and historical data, the next step is to look at those numbers from a slightly different angle. Which nights sold out weeks ahead, and which ones filled at the last minute? Nights that book out early are often a sign there’s room to adjust the rate. And someone booking a cabin is often comparing it with the motel down the road, so it helps to know what that local comparison looks like and to price with confidence for what you offer. Not every cabin is the same, and the prices don’t need to be either.

CEO, Holiday Parks New Zealand
In the DACH region, the gap between knowing and doing has a name: everyday pressure. Hoteliers know efficient processes would matter, but there’s no room for them in day-to-day business. Changing established processes is seen as extra work, not relief. The hotels that are really making progress all started with the same step: not everything at once, not perfectly, not with the best system, but with the decision to design one process deliberately. Introduce a standard. Track one metric. Change doesn’t happen through big projects. It happens through small, deliberate steps.

Hospitality Pioneers
Hotels do not necessarily need more data. They need better access to the right data and, more importantly, the ability to interpret it. I often see hotels spending enormous amounts of time producing reports without asking what decisions those reports should support. Start with the business questions: what do we need to understand, and what decisions do we need to make? Then identify the data that supports those decisions and automate the collection and reporting wherever possible. A good revenue manager should spend less time explaining what happened and more time determining what to do next.

Founder & CEO, Taktikon
One of the strongest messages from this report is that hospitality's revenue management conversation is evolving. The industry no longer lacks data, technology, or insights. The challenge is transforming those inputs into commercial strategy.
I found the report particularly valuable because it highlights the difference between managing rates and managing profitability, which is where true competitive advantage is created.

Chief Product Officer, Planet
Of all the technology a hotel can adopt - and there is plenty on offer, a revenue management system is one of the easiest to implement and one of the simplest to measure return on, because the value shows up directly in rate, occupancy, and revenue. That return is even stronger when it is properly connected to the hotel's property management system and draws on the same live reservation and rate data. For the 46% of non-users who cite cost as their barrier, that clear payback is the answer.

Chief Marketing Officer, RMS
What’s happening in your market? A few things that set each region apart.
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{{ ui.50 }}Your hotel has its own story. Build its next chapter with a stronger revenue strategy.
The hoteliers furthest ahead come in every size and every market. What they share is a handful of habits. Here's what the Strategic tier does that the rest of the industry is still building toward:

Reading through this report, three things stood out as important to the future of revenue management. The first is Trust. If you are automating an important part of your revenue management you really need to trust the results.
The second is Simplicity. If revenue managers don't really fully understand what is happening or how to improve the situation, they will feel powerless.
And the last is Automation. The sweet spot is where the RMS implements the tactics and the revenue manager spends their time on strategy and looking at the other important aspects, like marketing.
Co-founder & CSO, RoomPriceGenie
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Behind the report
Methodology
Respondents run independent hotels, hotel groups, chains, resorts, hostels, pubs with rooms, serviced apartments and holiday parks, in cities and rural spots alike. We use “hoteliers” as shorthand for all of them. Room counts refer to total rooms across all locations. Each market had 50 respondents, except the UK and US with 100 each.
Respondent profile
100% of the sample worked in travel accommodation (e.g. hotels, pubs, resorts, holiday parks, serviced apartments).
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