Length of stay and average length of stay (ALOS)
Adam is in Daniel’s office again, this time with a different dilemma. “Daniel, we have two offers for the same week, the second week of March. One is a Dutch tour operator wanting 20 rooms for 2 nights, Wednesday-Thursday, at EUR 78. The other is a domestic travel agency wanting 10 rooms for 5 nights, Sunday-Friday, at EUR 85. Both look like equally good numbers. Which should I take?”
Daniel does the math in his head for a few seconds. “Adam, these aren’t equal numbers. The first: 20 × 2 × 78 = EUR 3,120. The second: 10 × 5 × 85 = EUR 4,250. The second is +36% more revenue, with fewer rooms. And on top of that the operational cost is lower too — half as many check-ins and check-outs, half as many room turnovers, half as many cleaning cycles.”
“I hadn’t seen it that way.” — Adam is surprised.
“Because you only looked at the rate level, not the length of stay. Length of stay is just as strong an RM metric as ADR. In fact, sometimes even stronger.”
This dialogue is the core of understanding length of stay. Someone who only looks at ADR makes dramatically poor group choices and poor min-stay decisions. Someone who treats length of stay too as a strategic variable can extract 2-3x the value from the same capacity.
What length of stay is
The length of stay (LOS) is a specific booking’s stay length — how many nights the guest spends in the hotel.
If a guest arrives on March 12th and departs on March 15th, the LOS is 3 nights.
A simple concept. But its use is wide-ranging — from operational scheduling to rate restrictions, to F&B planning, to group selection, and to stay-pattern analysis.
ALOS — the average length of stay
ALOS (average length of stay) is the average LOS of all bookings in a given period, a single number.
Its calculation:
ALOS = total room nights sold / total bookings (room contracts)
Hotel Peaqplus City for October:
- Total room nights sold: 2,010
- Total bookings: 805
- ALOS: 2,010 / 805 = 2.5 nights
A 2.5 ALOS is average in an urban 4-star. An ALOS below 1.8 signals bookings that are too short; above 3.5, a more sustained / extended-stay guest profile.
But — like the mix effect on average rate in lesson 3 — the ALOS average can also be misleading. A mixed segment mix hides the detail. A 2.5 ALOS could be:
- All 2.5-night bookings (an even ALOS), or
- Half 1-night + half 4-night (a bipolar ALOS, with a 2.5 average).
The two situations demand radically different things from the RM, yet the number is the same.
Why length of stay matters
In four concrete areas, LOS sits at the centre of every RM decision:
1. Revenue uplift from long stays
As we saw in the Adam-Daniel example: a multi-night booking per room produces more revenue, at a lower operational cost.
Take a small 7-room block at Hotel Peaqplus City, over 5 nights:
| Scenario | Rooms | Nights | ADR | Revenue | Operational cost | Net revenue |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 5 separate 1-night bookings × 7 rooms (35 bookings) | 7 | 5 | EUR 95 | EUR 3,325 | EUR 525 (35 turnovers × 15) | EUR 2,800 |
| 7 bookings of 5 nights each (7 bookings) | 7 | 5 | EUR 95 | EUR 3,325 | EUR 105 (7 turnovers × 15) | EUR 3,220 |
Same 5 days, same 7 rooms, same ADR. The 7 long bookings produce EUR 420 more net revenue, because the check-in/check-out turnover cost is 5x lower.
This operational cost rarely appears in RM reports, but from the owner’s standpoint it’s real money.
2. F&B spend and ancillary
A longer stay generates more F&B spend than a per-night comparison would suggest. A 1-night guest often has only breakfast. A 5-night guest has 4-5 dinners, a week of bar spend, perhaps a spa package too.
Hotel Peaqplus City guest averages:
| LOS | F&B spend / night | Total F&B spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 night | ~EUR 18 | EUR 18 |
| 2 nights | ~EUR 22 | EUR 44 |
| 3-4 nights | ~EUR 28 | EUR 84-112 |
| 5-7 nights | ~EUR 32 | EUR 160-224 |
The longer-staying guest settles into the hotel, gets to know the restaurant, tries the spa — the per-night F&B spend rises too.
3. Pickup reliability
A longer-LOS booking comes with a lower cancellation rate. A honeymooner who booked 5 nights 60 days ahead shows up 94% of the time. A 1-night transient OTA booking 21 days out shows up only 78% of the time.
A longer stay is also more stable — the occupancy number really is what it looks like.
4. Operational scheduling
This is easily forgotten, but critical for the housekeeping team. A 1-night booking generates 7 turnovers over 7 days. A 7-night booking generates 1 turnover. The difference is 6 washes, 6 bed-strips, 6 sanitations.
Housekeeping performance is scaled by turnover count — more long-LOS bookings mean operational relief.
ALOS by segment
In lesson 8 (Segments) we saw the segments’ typical LOS values. Hotel Peaqplus City’s October ALOS by segment:
| Segment | Share | ALOS | F&B spend / night | Weighted LOS revenue / room |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Transient business | 22% | 1.8 nights | EUR 22 | EUR 229 (105 ADR × 1.8 + 22 × 1.8) |
| Transient leisure (OTA) | 28% | 2.4 nights | EUR 20 | EUR 276 |
| Transient leisure (direct) | 15% | 3.1 nights | EUR 28 | EUR 422 |
| Transient occasion | 6% | 2.8 nights | EUR 45 | EUR 504 |
| Corporate negotiated | 14% | 1.9 nights | EUR 20 | EUR 200 |
| Group leisure (tour operator) | 8% | 3.2 nights | EUR 15 | EUR 298 |
| Group MICE | 5% | 2.6 nights | EUR 52 | EUR 374 |
| Wholesale | 2% | 2.1 nights | EUR 10 | EUR 151 |
Looking at the weighted LOS revenue (the last column): Hotel Peaqplus City’s revenue per room is highest in the transient leisure direct (EUR 422) and transient occasion (EUR 504) segments — 2-3x that of wholesale (EUR 151). This translates directly into sales-team priorities: hunt these actively.
Stay restrictions — the link to length of stay
The concrete tools of the length-of-stay concept are the stay restrictions. We cover these in detail in lessons 24 and 42; here’s just a taste:
MLOS (minimum length of stay)
A rule that for a given day (or period) only a stay of the specified length is accepted. E.g. for New Year’s Eve, MLOS 3 — only 3+ night bookings are allowed.
Goal: on high-pickup peak days, to exclude the 1-2 night bookings that “skim” the high-ADR peak day but don’t help fill the surrounding low-season days.
CTA (closed to arrival)
A rule that for a given day no arrivals are accepted — only through-stays. E.g. a festival Friday CTA — guests arrive on the days before the Friday, and on Friday there are only already-in-house guests.
Goal: to structure the check-in/check-out traffic on peak days, or to sell a sought-after day together with the surrounding (weaker) days — steering the guest toward a multi-night booking.
CTD (closed to departure)
Its counterpart: for a given day no departures are accepted. E.g. for the Tuesday of a 4-day conference, a CTD — the guest can’t go home, only after Tuesday. Goal: to preserve the coherence of the 4-night bookings.
The three work together: MLOS controls the booking length, CTA and CTD control the daily pattern. A mature RM organization fine-tunes these at the daily level, and the Peaqplus pricing engine handles it automatically (see lesson 42).
Back to Adam’s group choice
From the start of the lesson, Adam was weighing two offers. Now you see why Daniel chose so confidently:
| Offer | Rooms | LOS | ADR | Total revenue | Operational cost (turnovers × EUR 15) | F&B estimate | Net total value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dutch tour operator | 20 | 2 nights | EUR 78 | EUR 3,120 | EUR 300 (20 turnovers) | ~EUR 800 | EUR 3,620 |
| Domestic travel agency | 10 | 5 nights | EUR 85 | EUR 4,250 | EUR 150 (10 turnovers) | ~EUR 1,400 | EUR 5,500 |
The difference is 5,500 − 3,620 = EUR 1,880 — +52% in favour of the domestic travel agency. And there’s an extra: it ties up half as many rooms, so the remaining capacity is available for transient pickup. A double gain.
Adam’s typical owner’s reflex was the initial “they look like equally good numbers” — and it would have been a dramatically poor choice. Without length of stay, this mistake stays invisible.
In lesson 42 (Length of stay strategy: how MLOS, CTA, CTD work) we cover this concept more deeply — there we also walk through the daily-level application of restrictions.
Key takeaways
- The length of stay (LOS) is the number of nights in a booking. ALOS is their average for a given period.
- A longer LOS produces more revenue from the same capacity (with substantially lower operational cost), attracts more F&B spend, and gives more stable pickup.
- An ALOS average hides a mix effect — half 1-night + half 4-night differs from an even 2.5-night, and demands different RM action.
- Stay restrictions (MLOS, CTA, CTD) are the concrete tools of length of stay — used on high-pickup peak days to control the booking length.
- Length of stay is an RM variable on par with ADR — in a group or rate decision it must be weighted just the same, and it often produces the more important value.
Click an answer — you see immediately whether it is right.
Answer all of them and the lesson counts as complete — and toward your progress.
Net = rooms × nights × ADR − rooms × turnover cost.
See the full definitions in the glossary.
Hotel Peaqplus City receives two offers for a weak November week: (A) 15 rooms × 1 night × EUR 110 ADR, or (B) 8 rooms × 3 nights × EUR 95 ADR. Which is more attractive from an RM standpoint, and why? List the arguments. And: an urban business hotel's ALOS is 1.4 nights, and the GM complains the 'bookings are too short' — what 2 strategic actions would you propose to lift the ALOS to 2.0 over 12 months?
- The extended-stay segment (Adagio, Staybridge Suites) is growing 8-12% a year in Europe, driven mainly by the preference for 7+ night LOS. In some markets this segment is still marginal (1-2%), but with significant growth potential.