Duetto: 4 crucial steps to maximize hotel revenue and profit in 2026

Is your hotel’s Q1 performance trailing? You’re not alone.

Across Europe and beyond, topline revenue has recovered strongly since 2019. Profit, however, tells a different story. HotStats’ latest aggregated data shows global RevPAR has grown 19% since 2019, while booking costs PAR has surged 25%. This is impacting flow-through, which averaged just 29% in Europe in 2025 — well below historical levels of approximately 50%.

The implication is clear: RevPAR in isolation is no longer enough to secure a hotel’s financial future.

Here are four practical shifts leading hotels are making to maximize both revenue and profit in 2026.

1. Move beyond fixed BAR and manual pricing

Many hotels still operate within two outdated constraints: rigid BAR pricing and spreadsheet-driven pricing.

In a traditional BAR model, a 15% discount on a €100 rate fixes the price at €85. Every rate is anchored to a single base, limiting flexibility.

Spreadsheets add further friction. Constant updates, manual checks, and approval chains slow decisions and make pricing reactive.

Leading hotels are replacing both with dynamic pricing methodologies such as Open Pricing. Instead of tying rates to a single BAR, prices are set independently across segments, channels, and room types. This allows hotels to:

● React in real time to demand shifts.

● Optimize revenue.

● Protect margins on high-demand dates.

When paired with automation, pricing becomes consistent and scalable. Kata Group, for example, transitioned from manual pricing to Open Pricing and achieved a +66% RevPAR uplift, alongside improved portfolio visibility and reduced manual workload.

2. Balance group and transient demand

Group business can stabilize occupancy, but can also displace higher-yield transient demand, especially during compression periods.

However, tools like BlockBuster enable hotels to automate group pricing, quantify displacement impact, and align revenue and sales around profitability thresholds.

As a Limited Service Hotel in Germany explains:

"BlockBuster saves so much time in calculations for group pricing — breaking it down to one crucial number makes decisions easy."

When group evaluation becomes automated and data-driven, hotels protect high-value transient demand while still capturing profitable group business.

3. Expand beyond rooms

Revenue management is no longer a rooms-only discipline. Leading hotels are integrating meetings and events, spa, golf, F&B, parking, and channel mix profitability into a unified commercial strategy.

Every square meter now carries revenue potential. Underutilized spaces are being repositioned into flexible work areas, premium services, or high-margin ancillary streams.

In today’s environment, expanding beyond rooms isn’t just about growing revenue, it’s about strengthening profit conversion and protecting margin.

4. Embed profit data directly into revenue strategy

The most significant shift is moving beyond revenue metrics alone.

RevPAR gains aren’t translating proportionally into bottom-line improvement. Margin erosion is driven by acquisition costs, inflation, and the disconnect between revenue and cost management.

Hotels that integrate financial benchmarking directly into revenue strategy are outperforming. Aggregated data shows properties using Duetto and HotStats together achieved a 6.8% increase in GOPPAR in 2025 — a 2.1 percentage point improvement over comparable companies.

This reflects a structural advantage: commercial decisions are evaluated based on profit contribution, not just topline growth.

The reality for hotels in 2026

In 2026, maximizing revenue alone won’t secure performance.

Hotels that outperform will combine dynamic pricing with automation, balance group and transient demand strategically, monetize all revenue streams, and — most importantly — embed profit data into every decision.

If you’re attending ITB Berlin, join Michael Grove, CEO of HotStats at Duetto, for a 20-minute session: "Turn Real Hotel Data into Unreal Performance"

He’ll analyze the widening gap between revenue and profit using real hotel data from Europe and globally, and outline where commercial leaders should focus to protect margins in 2026.

You can also visit Duetto at Booth 122, Hall 8.1, or book a meeting in advance: www.duettocloud.com/itb-2026

Sponsored article by Duetto