7 Questions Owners Should Ask Their GM About Pricing

RevPARGenius methodology and owner guides

Reviewed by Mark Joefer, Hotel Market Intelligence Researcher · 13 October 2026 · 10 min read

Owner questions to ask your GM about hotel pricing work best when they ask for numbers the GM already has, or can start tracking. These seven cover break-even, who sets the rates, reviews, event nights, weekends, floors and channels.

This guide is for owners of independent hotels, motels and holiday parks in Australia and New Zealand who want a clearer view of pricing without second-guessing their GM. Each question comes with what a good answer looks like.

The seven questions, in short:

1. What is our occupancy, and what is our break-even if we raise rates?
2. Who sets the rates day to day?
3. How often are rates reviewed, and what triggers a change?
4. How are event nights priced, and how far ahead?
5. How do our weekend rates compare with our weekday rates?
6. What floors and ceilings do we use?
7. Which channels bring our bookings, and what do they cost?

Each section below uses a worked example (synthetic data) for a fictional 40-cabin NZ holiday park, 90 nights from 14 October 2026, to show what a good answer looks like. It is not a real property. Its "market middle" column is an illustrative assumption, not market data.

What occupancy and break-even should an owner ask about?

Question 1: What is our occupancy, and what is our break-even if we raise rates? Occupancy on its own is a comfort number. The useful follow-up is break-even occupancy: current occupancy × current rate ÷ target rate. It tells you how many guests you could lose at a higher rate before revenue falls.

In the worked example (synthetic data), occupancy is 93.2% at NZ$119 a night. A 5% higher rate keeps the same room revenue down to 88.8% occupancy, a 10% higher rate down to 84.7% and a 15% higher rate down to 81.0%. At +10%, that is about 3.4 cabins a night of headroom. A good answer from a GM sounds like that: a number, a range and a view on whether those guests would really go.

High occupancy is not automatically good news. A property that fills almost every night may be selling its last rooms early at a rate the market would have paid more for. Our break-even occupancy check gives the GM a one-page way to answer this.

Who sets the rates, and how often are they reviewed?

Question 2: Who sets the rates day to day? In small properties the answer is often "whoever is on the desk", or a rate grid set once a season. Neither is wrong, but the owner should know which it is, and who has authority to change a rate on a busy Friday.

Question 3: How often are rates reviewed, and what triggers a change? A weekly review of the next 90 nights is a practical minimum. Good triggers are written down: pickup faster than usual, a known event, a competitor set that has moved. The 20-minute weekly rate review template is a simple format a GM can share with an owner each week.

How are event nights and weekends priced?

Question 4: How are event nights priced, and how far ahead? Event nights are where the biggest single-night decisions sit. Real 2026 dates for AU and NZ properties include the Labour Day long weekend in New Zealand (Saturday 24 to Monday 26 October), Melbourne Cup (Tuesday 3 November), Christmas Day (Friday 25 December), Boxing Day (Saturday 26 December) and New Year’s Eve (Thursday 31 December).

In the worked example (synthetic data), the flagged event nights run at 94.0% occupancy and NZ$120, while the illustrative middle on those nights is NZ$195. On Saturday 24 October, the Labour Day weekend, the park asks NZ$120 against an illustrative NZ$210. Full at a low rate on event nights is a common pattern; the question is whether the rate was set before the date filled or left on the standard grid.

Question 5: How do our weekend rates compare with our weekday rates? Ask for the property’s own weekend premium: weekend rate (Fri–Sat nights) ÷ weekday rate (Sun–Thu nights) − 1. In the worked example (synthetic data) it is 122 ÷ 118 − 1, or 3.4%, with weekend occupancy at 94.2%.

The middle values are medians of the illustrative nightly figures, an assumption for the worked example.

The weekend gap is 10.6 percentage points wider than the weekday gap. That is worth a conversation, but it is a pattern, not a sum of money. Because occupancy is stated in the worked example, a dollar illustration is allowed. Illustration, if the same share of rooms sold at the higher rate; rooms already booked are not repriced: a NZ$10 weekend step (NZ$122 to NZ$132, still under the NZ$167 middle) is 10 × 40 × 94.2% × 26 weekend nights, about NZ$9,800; a NZ$5 weekday step (NZ$118 to NZ$123) is 5 × 40 × 92.8% × 64 weekday nights, about NZ$11,878. Your property’s own pickup decides whether either holds.

What floors and ceilings protect the rate?

Question 6: What floors and ceilings do we use? A floor is the lowest public rate the property will sell at; a ceiling is the highest. Floors protect against panic discounting on quiet nights; ceilings protect against a typing error or an overreaction on a busy one. Both should be written down and reviewed each season.

This question matters most if the property uses pricing software or is thinking about it. Owners and GMs often worry about losing control to a system. Floors, ceilings and a weekly review are what keep control with the people who run the property; our piece on the fear of losing control covers how to set them.

Which channels bring the bookings, and what do they cost?

Question 7: Which channels bring our bookings, and what do they cost? Ask for revenue by channel, the rate per room night in each, and the commission rate on each. In the worked example (synthetic data) booking sample:

Worked example (synthetic data). The booking sample is separate from the daily file and does not reconcile exactly to it. Rates are before commission.

The four third-party booking sites together bring 65.0% of revenue in the sample. The direct website brings 19.8% at NZ$120, a slightly lower rate than OTA A, which may still net more once commission is counted. A GM who knows these figures can say which channel to grow and which rate plan to change.

How should an owner raise these questions without undermining the GM?

Raise them as a regular agenda item, not after a bad month. Send the seven questions ahead of the meeting so the GM can bring numbers. Agree on one or two changes to test, and review them in four weeks. If the GM does not have a figure, the useful response is "can we start tracking it?", not "why don’t you know?". A GM who runs a full property on a lean team rarely has spare hours; the questions should save them time by making the weekly review the place where these answers live.

For holiday park owners, the holiday park cabin pricing guide uses the same worked example to go deeper into cabin types and weekend steps.

What to do this week

1. Send your GM the seven questions and ask for a 30-minute slot to go through them.
2. Ask for occupancy and rate for the last 90 nights, split into weekday and weekend.
3. Agree a written floor and ceiling for the next season.
4. List the event dates in the next 90 nights and confirm the rate and minimum stay set for each.
5. Ask for revenue by channel with commission, and agree one channel goal for the quarter.

Frequently asked questions

What should a hotel owner ask the GM about pricing?

Start with occupancy and break-even at a higher rate, who sets rates and how often they are reviewed, how event nights and weekends are priced, what floors and ceilings apply, and which channels bring bookings at what cost.

How does an owner check if hotel rates are too low?

Ask for break-even occupancy: current occupancy times current rate divided by target rate. If the property would keep the same revenue while losing only a few guests a night, a test at a higher rate on selected nights is worth discussing.

How often should a GM review hotel rates?

A weekly review of the next 90 nights is a practical minimum for most small properties, with written triggers for changes between reviews, such as fast pickup or a known event.

What is a weekend premium?

A property’s weekend premium is its weekend rate on Friday and Saturday nights divided by its weekday rate on Sunday to Thursday nights, minus one. In the worked example it is 3.4%.

Is the worked example in this article a real hotel?

No. It is synthetic data for a fictional 40-cabin NZ holiday park, used to show how the questions can be answered. Its market middle column is an illustrative assumption, not market data.

The next step is to put your own dates beside the market middle for the same nights, with the capture date on every number.

Data sources: worked example (synthetic data) for a fictional 40-cabin NZ holiday park, 90 nights from 14 October 2026, daily file and separate booking sample. Analysis run October 2026. Last reviewed October 2026. RevPARGenius is a hotel market intelligence platform. It is not affiliated with any online travel agency or hotel chain.

Research methodology and disclosures: Market figures in this article are calculated by RevPARGenius from room rates publicly displayed on online travel agency (OTA) channels, on one search basis (1 night, 2 adults, 1 room, cheapest offer shown). We publish a market figure only where at least 15 properties were priced. The figures are advertised asking prices. They do not show occupancy, bookings, negotiated corporate rates or revenue achieved. Worked examples marked as synthetic use invented data. This article is general information, not pricing advice: each hotel sets its own rates independently. RevPARGenius and CloseMode are commercially affiliated platforms.