The trade's vocabulary
Hotel glossary
51 everyday hotel terms, explained the way you'd explain them to someone on their first shift.
Front desk and housekeeping vocabulary first, the words used during a shift. Commercial terms and metrics after, to follow what's said in a meeting. Every definition is written in plain English, with no extra jargon.
At the front desk
Counter vocabulary, the words that pass between the morning, evening and night teams.
- Front desk logalso: logbook
The register where the front desk records what happens during a shift, hour by hour: incidents, guest requests, contractor visits. It's the property's memory, the one you reopen when a guest disputes something three days later.
Keep the front desk log in Front Desk- Shift handoveralso: handover
The moment one team passes on to the next what it needs to know when it arrives. It's the weak point at most properties: whatever isn't written down gets lost between shifts.
Run the handover through an app- No-show
A guest who doesn't turn up and hasn't cancelled. The room stays empty even though it was booked, and the property bills according to the booking's terms.
Recording it, billing it, and the VAT question- Walk-in
A guest who arrives with no reservation and asks for a room for that night. It's often a chance to sell at the day's rate rather than an intermediary's negotiated rate.
- Overbookingalso: oversell
Accepting more bookings than the property has rooms for, betting on cancellations and no-shows. When the bet doesn't pay off, someone has to be walked.
What to do when a room is short- Walking a guestalso: relocation
Sending a guest to another property because no room is available. The hotel covers the night and the transport, and it's a moment where every detail needs to be written down: who was walked, where to, and what was promised by whom.
Keep a record of what was promised- Discrepancyalso: room status discrepancy
The gap between a room's status according to the front desk and its status according to housekeeping: occupied on one side, vacant on the other. It shows up on the housekeeping report, and gets resolved with a call or a check in person.
Flag the discrepancy to whoever needs to see it- Early check-in
An arrival before the usual check-in time. It means a room has to be ready earlier, so housekeeping needs advance notice.
- Late check-out
A departure after the usual check-out time. Granted case by case, it pushes back cleaning and needs to be known to housekeeping before they go up.
- Day use
Occupying a room during the day, with no overnight stay. The room is sold a second time the same day, which means a clean in between the two occupancies.
- Rooming list
The named list of a group's members, with the room allocation. It usually arrives the day before and concerns the front desk as much as housekeeping.
What it contains and who it concerns- Night audit
The day's close-out, done overnight: accounts are settled, the date rolls over, the day's reports are run. Not to be confused with the night auditor's other job, keeping watch overnight — the two often fall to the same person, but they're different tasks.
The cash close-out in Front Desk- Night roundalso: security round, night patrol
The regular check of the premises by night staff: corridors, fire exits, plant rooms. It does not replace the fire safety register, a separate regulatory document specific to the property.
What it checks and how to log it- Duty manager
The person holding responsibility for the property outside management's normal hours, often evenings and weekends. They're the one who makes the call when a call needs making.
- Guest historyalso: cardex
The record that keeps a guest's history: past stays, preferences, complaints. It's what lets you recognise a regular instead of treating them like a stranger.
- Wake-up call
A guest's requested wake-up, at a specific time. Missing one before a morning flight is a guaranteed complaint, which is why it gets written down rather than remembered.
- Lost and found
The register of items guests leave behind, from discovery in a room through to return or disposal. The discovery date matters as much as the description: it's what ties the item back to a stay.
Keep the lost and found register
In housekeeping
Cleaning and linen vocabulary, the words that pass between the housekeeper, room attendants and the front desk.
- Stayoveralso: stayover room
A room whose guest is staying another night. The clean is lighter: the bed is made without necessarily changing the sheets, supplies are topped up, and the guest's belongings are left untouched.
The stayover clean, step by step- Checkout roomalso: departure room
A room a guest has left. The clean is complete: bed and bath linen changed, bathroom done thoroughly, amenities restocked. It's the longest clean, and the one that holds up arrivals.
The checkout clean as a checklist- Executive housekeeperalso: housekeeper
The person who organises housekeeping's work: assigning rooms, checking the cleans, managing linen and supplies. They're the constant link between housekeeping and the front desk.
- Housekeeping
The whole department in charge of rooms, public areas and linen. In some countries you'll also see it under other names, but “housekeeping” is the term used across most of the English-speaking hotel trade.
- Out of Orderalso: OOO, out of order room
A room pulled from sale because it isn't fit to use: a breakdown, water damage, renovation work. It comes out of inventory until the problem is fixed, and every day it stays that way counts.
Out of Order, Out of Service, and who decides- Out of Servicealso: OOS
A room temporarily not assigned, for a minor fault that doesn't stop it being sold: a bulb, a missing remote. Unlike an Out of Order room, it stays in inventory.
- Amenitiesalso: guest amenities
What a guest finds in their room at no extra cost: soap, shower gel, bathroom essentials. Restocking them is part of the final check after a clean.
- Hospitality trayalso: courtesy tray, tea and coffee tray
The tray left in the room with a kettle, tea, coffee and biscuits. It gets checked and restocked at every clean, stayover or checkout alike.
- Turndown servicealso: turndown
The evening visit: opening the bed, drawing the curtains, tidying the bathroom, sometimes leaving a small treat. Mostly found in upscale hotels.
- Linen roomalso: linen
The room and the department that manage linen: sheets, towels, uniforms. It's where a shortage that's holding up a clean gets sorted out.
- Floor pantryalso: housekeeping closet
The service room on a floor where the trolley, clean linen and supplies are kept. The start and end point of a day in housekeeping.
- Room attendantalso: housekeeper, chambermaid
The person who cleans the rooms. Distinct from the cleaner who handles public areas and offices, and from “chambermaid”, an older title still used in a few properties.
Stays and rates
What ends up on a booking, and what you need to understand to answer a guest on the phone.
- Room night
One room occupied for one night. It's the unit used to measure activity: two rooms for three nights makes six room nights.
- Pax
The number of people. On a booking or an event, “2 pax” means two people, regardless of the number of rooms.
- Twin, double, king
Twin: two separate beds. Double: one bed for two. King: a large bed, generally from about 180cm/6ft wide. Mixing up twin and double is one of the most common complaints at check-in.
- Junior suite
A room larger than a standard room, with a sitting area, but no separate room. A true suite has at least two distinct rooms.
- Half boardalso: HB
The rate includes the night, breakfast and one other meal. Full board includes both other meals. Drinks are almost always extra.
- Dinner, bed and breakfastalso: DB&B, business package
A fixed-price package aimed at business travellers: the room, dinner and breakfast for one price. Exact inclusions vary from property to property, which makes it worth checking before you quote one.
- Tourist taxalso: city tax, occupancy tax
A local tax charged per person per night, collected by the property on behalf of the local authority. It's added on top of the rate and isn't part of the hotel's own revenue.
- Deposit vs. prepayment
Two different ways to take money upfront, with different consequences. A refundable deposit lets a guest cancel and get it back; a non-refundable prepayment makes the booking firm, and cancelling forfeits it or triggers a charge. What a quote calls it is never a neutral choice of words.
- Best available ratealso: BAR
The property's public rate for the day, the one that shows by default. It moves with demand, unlike the rack rate.
- Rack rate
A room's maximum public rate, with no discount or negotiation. It's used as a reference, but it's rarely what a guest actually pays.
- Allotment
A block of rooms reserved by contract for a tour operator, up to a release date. After that date, the hotel gets back whatever wasn't sold.
- Voucher
The exchange document a guest gets from an agency or tour operator, confirming what's been prepaid. At the front desk, it determines what's left to charge the guest.
Tools and metrics
The trade's software and the numbers that come up in meetings. Worth knowing even when you don't use them every day.
- PMSalso: property management system
The hotel's central software: bookings, room planning, billing. It's the property's IT core, and it doesn't handle what teams pass on to each other day to day.
- OTAalso: online travel agency
An online booking platform, like the major reservation sites. It brings in guests in exchange for a commission on each booking.
- Channel manager
The tool that pushes availability and rates out to every sales channel at once, so the same room never gets sold twice.
- GDSalso: global distribution system
The older distribution systems used by travel agencies and corporate travel departments. They predate the internet and still carry a lot of business travel.
- Occupancy rate
The share of available rooms that are occupied, over a given period. The first number anyone looks at, but it says nothing about the price you filled them at.
- ADRalso: average daily rate
The average rate of a room that's actually occupied. It's calculated by dividing room revenue by the number of rooms sold.
- RevPARalso: revenue per available room
Revenue per available room, occupied or not. It combines occupancy and average rate, which makes it the most closely watched figure: filling up cheap and selling high while half-empty can produce the same RevPAR.
- Yield managementalso: revenue management
The art of adjusting rates to expected demand, day by day. The right room, to the right guest, at the right time, for the right price.
- Rate parity
The commitment to show the same rate across every sales channel. Often written into contracts by online agencies.
- MICEalso: meetings, incentives, conferences and events
Business tourism: meetings, seminars, conferences and incentive trips. An activity that ties up meeting rooms, catering and a lot of coordination between departments.
Missing a word?
Write to us with the term you were looking for, and it'll join the glossary. And if you ended up here looking for how to pass all this on between your teams, that's exactly our line of work.