Is Your CompSet Built for Profit?
For years, hotel benchmarking has defaulted to one metric: RevPAR. It was the universal KPI that every property, brand — and in every boardroom was used to shape strategy and direction.
But today, revenue on its own tells you half of the story. Margins are being squeezed by rising labour costs, inflation, and uneven demand recovery; exposing the blind spots of revenue-only benchmarking. At the same time, owners and asset managers are demanding stronger returns while expecting stronger risk management.
The key question for corporate leaders has changed. It’s no longer “How much revenue did we generate?” but “How much profit did we keep?”
The Corporate Challenge
For brand and corporate executives, setting strategy at portfolio scale is no small task. Performance insights often arrive fragmented and inconsistent, making it impossible to enforce alignment across dozens — or even hundreds — of properties.
– One property tracks RevPAR weekly, another monthly.
– Some benchmark against a narrow local comp set, others rely on regional averages.
– And just a handful surface the operational costs that provide insights into actual profitability.
Without standardized benchmarking, corporate initiatives lose traction.
Why revenue-only benchmarking falls short
RevPAR has long been a useful benchmark, but it leaves blind spots. It tells you how much revenue was generated per room, not what it costs to generate it.
That gap leaves leaders blind to the metrics that matter most to boards and investors.
– Was higher occupancy delivered at the expense of staff productivity?
– Are F&B outlets generating profit or quietly eroding it?
– How much of the rate growth is surviving inflation?
Take a global brand with 80 properties that celebrated strong RevPAR growth. But when profitability was benchmarked across a customised compset, a different story emerged: labour costs and F&B outlets had risen by 25%, wiping out most of the rate gains. By the time the board saw the numbers, the damage was already done.
When these factors are invisible, profit leaks remain hidden until they show up in the bottom line; often, too late to act.
Building Portfolio CompSets for Profit
Leading brands are moving beyond revenue-only sets to adopt profit-focused compsets. These provide a consistent lens across portfolios, aligning property execution with brand-level strategy.
Unlike traditional approaches, profit-focused compsets capture how efficiently hotels convert revenue into profit, covering GOPPAR, labour ratios, and departmental performance. Standardising these across assets ensures true apples-to-apples comparison, regardless of property size, market, or even segment.
Just as importantly, they equip executives with the insight investors demand, linking property-level execution directly to long-term brand growth.
This shift isn’t about ditching RevPAR, but to enrich revenue benchmarks with the profit insights sought by today’s corporate stakeholders and a changing market.
The Risks of Standing Still
CompSets that fail to account for profit create unnecessary risks:
– Chaos: Without standardised benchmarking, there’s no reliable portfolio view.
– Margin erosion: Revenue-only compsets overlook costs, labour, and departmental performance.
– Competitive edge: Brands that remain RevPAR-only are slower to identify risks and opportunities.
– Investor confidence: Boards demand transparency on profit drivers, not just topline growth.
The cost of inaction is clear: missed opportunities, weaker margins, and diminished trust at the investor level.
From Topline Revenue to Bottom-line Intelligence
The good news: there’s a way forward. With profit-focused benchmarking from HotStats, you can align property-level execution with corporate vision.
By standardising measurement around profit, you gain clarity, consistency, and the ability to act quickly across your portfolio. It means spotting both underperformance and outperformance in time to protect your margins and strengthen results.
This is operational benchmarking that gives leaders the confidence to move decisively and profitably. Give your board the profit transparency they expect. Align property execution with corporate vision and strengthen investor confidence.
Ready to see your compset in action? Book a call with our experts or get in touch with us today: [email protected].
This article originally appeared on HotStats.
