Abu Dhabi skyline at dusk with tall towers and a large domed palace hotel reflected in the water

Travel Industry Terms, Decoded

The vocabulary behind hotel, airline and agency headlines, in plain English.

Home › Industry Terms

Trade stories assume you know the vocabulary. Here are the terms that come up most in hotel, air and agency news, defined in plain English. Cruise terms such as lower berths and yields are covered by Cruise Industry Daily.

Hotel Terms

Occupancy: The share of available rooms that were sold in a period.
ADR (average daily rate): Room revenue divided by rooms sold: the average price of a sold room.
RevPAR (revenue per available room): Room revenue divided by all available rooms, sold or not. It combines occupancy and ADR in one number.
Pipeline: Hotels planned or under construction but not yet open.
Comp set: The group of competing hotels a property measures itself against when it compares occupancy and rates.
Brand vs. owner vs. operator: The name on the door, the company that owns the building and the company that runs it can all be different.

Air Terms

Load factor: The share of available seats filled with paying passengers.
Capacity: Seats or seat-miles an airline offers; news about “adding capacity” means more flights or bigger aircraft.
NDC (New Distribution Capability): An IATA-developed standard for selling airline content, used by airlines to distribute fares and extras outside traditional channels.
GDS (global distribution system): The reservation networks, such as Amadeus, Sabre and Travelport, that agencies use to search and book.
Interline / codeshare: Agreements that let one ticket cover flights on more than one airline.
Yield: In airline news, the average revenue earned per passenger mile; rising yields usually mean higher fares.
Throughput: The number of people passing through a checkpoint or airport, as in TSA’s daily figures.

Agency and Market Terms

ARC: The Airlines Reporting Corporation, which settles air sales between U.S. agencies and airlines and publishes monthly agency sales data.
IATA / IATAN number: Codes that identify an accredited agency to airlines and suppliers.
Consortium: A group of agencies that negotiate with preferred suppliers together.
Preferred supplier: A supplier an agency or consortium has an agreement with; it often comes with marketing support and better terms.
DMO / DMC: A destination marketing organization promotes a place (often a tourism board); a destination management company runs ground services there.
FIT: Independent, custom travel, as opposed to a group or packaged tour.
MICE: Meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions: the business-events side of travel.
Inbound / outbound: Visitors arriving in a country versus residents traveling abroad.
Shoulder season: The period between peak and low season, often a good balance of weather, crowds and availability.

When a story uses a term you do not know, look it up before you repeat the story. A misunderstood metric is the quickest way to give a client the wrong impression. For how the news itself is produced and where to read it, start at our travel trade news page.

Speak the Language, Sell the Trips

Knowing the vocabulary is the first step. Learn how to start a home-based travel business.

Become a Travel Agent