TrevPAR fell 8.8% last year. The industry's response is only half the answer.

U.S. hotel TrevPAR fell 8.8% last year while rates held steady. Guests are spending less beyond the room. The industry response has been predictable and correct: lean harder into F&B, spa, experiences, and upsells. HSMAI just released an entire playbook on it.

But there's a disconnect underneath it all that nobody's addressing. Revenue teams are building total guest value strategies, thinking about every dollar spent on the property and the full guest journey. Meanwhile, marketing teams are still optimizing for cost per booking, a metric that tells you nothing about what happens after the reservation is made.

Think about what that means when 30-40% of your property revenue comes from outside the room. Your marketing team has no idea which campaigns bring in diners, spa bookers, and event attendees. They can't tell you which channels bring guests who book and cancel, or show up and spend nothing beyond the room rate. Ask your marketing director those questions right now, and they'd need weeks of manual analysis across multiple systems to even attempt an answer.

You can build the most creative ancillary revenue program in the industry, but if your marketing is still acquiring guests based solely on booking metrics, your revenue and acquisition strategies are running on parallel tracks that never meet.

The opportunity isn't just offering more services. It's knowing which campaigns bring the guests who actually use them.

---

Sources: 

• https://lodgingmagazine.com/new-report-finds-decline-in-trevpar-and-revpar-at-u-s-hotels-in-2025/

• https://americas.hsmai.org/press_release/hsmai-releases-new-ancillary-revenue-strategy-playbook-to-help-hotels-unlock-incremental-revenue-in-a-shifting-landscape/