What data you need to forecast demand for your hotel

The short answer: the booking records your property management system (PMS) already keeps. You do not need new software or new record-keeping. You need at least two full years of history, so that seasonality shows.

The six fields you need

Field	Why it is needed
Date the booking was made	Shows how far ahead guests book and how fast each week fills
Arrival date and nights	Shows which nights fill and which stay empty
Rate per night	Links demand to revenue
Booking channel	Booking.com, Expedia and your own site fill at different speeds
Booking status	Without cancellations, the forecast shows more demand than will arrive
Room type	Demand is not the same for every room category

What helps, without being required

• Local events: conferences, public holidays, matches, concerts.
• Your competitors’ rates for the same dates.

A forecast starts without these and gets more accurate once they are added.

What you do not need

• A new PMS. An export of your bookings to a file is enough.
• Perfect data. Cleaning it is part of the work, not a precondition.
• Guest names. A forecast works on bookings, not on personal details.

How to check whether you have it

Ask your PMS for an export of all bookings from recent years, including cancelled ones. If the file has the six fields in the table, you have what you need to start.

An example

At Hera Hotel in Athens, the week-by-week demand forecast was built on more than four years of bookings the hotel already had. See the case study.