Overbooking Controls

Overbooking is the practice of selling more rooms than are physically present in a hotel to make up for wash (cancellations, no-shows, etc.). The goal of overbooking is to maximize revenue by achieving as close to 100% occupancy as possible on any given day.

IDeaS RMS provides two sets of overbooking controls, which work collectivity with each other.

House Overbooking Limit

The level to which the Total Hotel may be overbooked on any given day in the future booking horizon.

Room Type Overbooking Limit

The level to which each room type configured within the Selling System may be overbooked on any given day in the future booking horizon.

Functionality of Overbooking Controls

• Overbooking values are always sent as a negative value to the receiving system.
• Room Type Overbooking values do not equal the Hotel Overbooking Values.
• Hotel Overbooking controls the overall availability of the total Hotel capacity.
• When both sets of Overbooking controls are sent to the Selling System, the House Overbooking limit is the Primary Rule.
• Once Hotel Overbooking has been reached, the Hotel is closed for sale for the given occupancy date.

IDeaS Overbooking Calculation

Physical Capacity – Negative Overbooking = Effective Capacity
Effective Capacity – (Out of Order + Rooms Sold) = Available Capacity

Overbooking Example

The table below shows overbooking values for four room types (RT) and the Total Hotel. These values are used throughout the examples.

Example 1:

This example shows Overbooking implemented using Effective Capacity (Physical Capacity + Overbooking). In this example, the Total Hotel Effective Capacity is the Physical Hotel Capacity + Hotel Level Overbooking value of 67.

Example 2:

This example shows the impact of Out of Order (OOO) and reservations booked after Effective Capacity is calculated, to show Available Capacity by Room Type and at the Total Hotel level.