Strategy Lab - Why a sold-out night isn't always a profitable one

Sold-out nights may seem like the ultimate goal for commercial teams, but they can sometimes mask underlying profitability issues. A room sold through an OTA nets less after commission than one sold direct, so a night filled mostly with OTA bookings might actually generate less profit than a less-than-full night built on direct business.

In this Strategy Lab session, Blake Reiter and Daniel Foreman catch that problem early: a night where occupancy is building, but mostly through OTAs. Rather than waiting to see how it fills in, they benchmark the direct channel to find out exactly where it's leaking. Then they match each gap to its own fix, whether that's how the site converts, what guests spend once they book, or how rates compare to OTAs.