Pearson New International Edition International pcl tp indd 1

FRONT OFFICE SEMANTICS
Extended forecast:
Occupancy forecast that projects room demand more than 30 days into the future.
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Current data. Data for time periods that have yet to occur, but for which the
PMS is accepting reservations and reporting reservation-related information, can
be useful for extended forecasts, but only if guests made their reservations far in
advance. However, as we have seen, the advance (lead) time between booking a
reservation and arrival is typically short and is becoming shorter. A hotel cater-
ing to business travelers may, for example, have few reservations on-the-books for
dates that are more than four or five months in the future, even though it is
likely that the hotel will secure many reservations for those periods.Therefore, as the
time frame for an extended forecast is pushed forward, the amount of useful cur-
rent PMS data is typically reduced. Nevertheless, a talented FOM can use the
limited current data available to improve forecasting. For example, note the data
about reservation booking pace for the Altoona Hotel in Figure 18.
Assume that, on June 1, the Altoona Hotel’s FOM creates an on-the-
books pace report detailing all reservations currently in the PMS for the next