Pace and pickup through a leader's eyes: seeing ahead, not explaining after the fact

Thursday morning. Adam, the general manager of Hotel Peaqplus City, and Esther, the marketing manager, are looking at next month’s calendar over a coffee. Adam opens with his usual question: “Where do we stand?” — to which the old reflex would answer: “last month closed at 79%, we’re fine.” But last month is already a closed book. The question that matters looks ahead: where do we stand NOW against the days that can still be sold?

Daniel, the revenue manager, picks out two dates. One is a Saturday three weeks away: it’s already at 82.5%, whereas last year, the same distance before the day, it was only at 67.5%. The other is a Tuesday in the same month: it’s lagging 8 percentage points behind the usual pace. Two days, the same hotel, diametrically opposite situations — and both can still be acted on, because neither has happened yet. This is the essence of pace and pickup, and this lesson is about what a leader does with them.

Pace: the booking pace, not the end state

Pace (the booking pace) measures how fast a future day is filling — not how full it will end up. A date doesn’t fill all at once: bookings trickle in over weeks and months, along a characteristic build-up curve. The pace tells us where we stand on that curve today, for this day.

The leader doesn’t need to draw a curve or calculate a formula. There’s just one thing to understand: the occupancy number on its own is mute until there’s something to compare it to. “82.5%” is neither good nor bad. It gains meaning when we add: three weeks before the day, and last year at this point it was only 67.5%. Suddenly the number starts to speak: this day is filling faster than usual.

Same Point: the fair comparison

This is where the most important concept comes in. We don’t compare where this Saturday stands today with where it ended up last year — that would be deceptive. We look at where it stood last year the same number of days before the date. This is Same Point analysis: same moment, same distance from the target.

Peaqplus’s Same Point view makes exactly this visible — it measures today’s position against last year’s same point. And the Pickup feature shows how many bookings came in over a given period (and also flags negative pickup, the drop from cancellations). Together the two give the leader’s compass: where we stand now, and which direction we’re moving.

Why does this matter so much? Because Same Point is the only way to tell now whether a future day is heading in a good or bad direction — not after the day, when it’s too late. Whoever only looks at the end result always explains after the fact. Whoever reads the pace sees ahead.

The Saturday: a pace lead → we dare to raise the rate

Take the Saturday concretely. Of Hotel Peaqplus City’s 80 rooms, 66 have already sold — that’s 82.5% on the books (OTB), three weeks before the date. Last year, the same distance before the day, only 54 rooms were in (67.5%). We’re 12 rooms, 15 percentage points ahead of last year’s pace.

What does this tell us? Demand for this day is strong. If we don’t touch it now, the remaining 14 rooms will sell too — most likely at the current rate — and in the end we’ll proudly report that we “were full”. But that’s exactly the trap: a full house here would mean we sold the capacity too cheap, too early. When demand shows up earlier than usual, the rate has room to move up.

On this year’s Saturday we sell two fewer rooms — it won’t be completely full — yet we bring in 1,048 EUR, 13% more revenue, because the high pace authorised the rate rise. The less-full but higher-priced night won. The pace made that insight possible: without knowing the end result, three weeks earlier.

The Tuesday: a pace shortfall → we act in time

Now the other date. This Tuesday, three weeks out, stands at only 40 rooms (50% OTB), while the usual pace would put it around 46 by now (57.5%) — roughly an 8-percentage-point, six-room shortfall. If we do nothing, projecting from today’s pace the day would close around 62%, against the planned 75%: ten rooms left empty that we never get back (a given night’s room is a perishable good — see lesson 2).

But three weeks is still plenty of time. A lagging pace isn’t a verdict, it’s an early warning. There’s plenty to do: Esther can launch a targeted offer aimed at these weak few days; sales can check whether there’s corporate or smaller-group demand to bring in; the front desk can steer extending, flexible guests toward this day. The key is that it happens now, while demand still has time to respond — not after the day, when all we can write in the report is “it was a weak Tuesday”.

Notice the symmetry: the same tool (reading the pace) suggests a rate rise on one day and demand stimulation on the other. It doesn’t push in one direction — it adapts to the situation. That’s what separates the forward-looking hotel from the reactive one.

One important caution here: the pace must always be measured against its own day’s counterpart, not crosswise. A Saturday’s build-up curve is quite different from a Tuesday’s; a high-season week’s is different from a low-season one’s. So there’s no single “good pace number” — 50% OTB is an alarming shortfall on one day and perfectly healthy on another. The leader’s job isn’t to know the curves by heart, but to always ask for the right comparison: “for this day type, this many days out, where did we stand last year?” That one question protects you from making a bad decision on a number that is, on its own, scary or reassuring.

Back to the Thursday-morning coffee

Seeing the two dates, Adam doesn’t make a single decision — he distributes the task. For the Saturday he signs off on the rate rise — the pace gave him the courage, and there’s no sense letting the demand go at the old rate. The Tuesday he hands to Esther: “Put a targeted offer on these few days, not on the month in general — the rest of the month carries itself.” This is the seed of pace-driven marketing, which has its own lesson in the Sales & Marketing track.

Here’s the leadership altitude of the lesson: pace isn’t revenue-manager jargon the leader can skip. It’s the early-warning system for every future day. The leader doesn’t draw the curve — but asks the right question (“where do we stand for this day, measured against last year?”), and acts in time on the answer. Whoever only looks at closed months always explains after the fact. Whoever reads the pace can still have a say in the result.

The construction of pace curves, and the daily, tactical use of pickup windows and Same Point analysis, is covered from the revenue manager’s angle by the RM Academy lessons Pickup and booking pace, Booking pace and the pace report, and Same point analysis.

Key takeaways

• The occupancy number on its own is mute. “82%” is neither good nor bad until we add: how many days before the date and what it was last year at this point. That’s the pace (the booking pace).
• Same Point = a fair comparison: we measure today’s position against last year’s (or the budget’s) same point, not against last year’s final result.
• A pace lead → dare to raise the rate. If a day is filling faster than usual, a full house often means you sold too cheap — the revenue is higher on the slightly less-full but pricier night.
• A pace shortfall → act while there’s still time. A lagging pace isn’t a verdict, it’s an early warning; aim at those few weak days specifically, not at the month in general.
• The same tool works in both directions — it doesn’t push the rate, it adapts to the situation. That’s what separates the forward-looking hotel from the reactive one.