Occupancy rate is the share of a property's available nights that were actually booked, over whatever period you're looking at.
Occupancy Rate = Nights Booked ÷ Nights Available
A property booked 20 nights out of a 30-night month is at roughly 67% occupancy. On its own, that number says nothing about what those nights were worth — only how full the calendar was.
Try it with your own numbers
What counts as "available"
Exactly how a booking tool defines "available" varies slightly: whether a cancelled booking's dates count as available again, and whether blocked-off maintenance dates count against the total, both change the number a little. It's worth knowing how your own numbers are calculated before comparing them against a benchmark calculated differently.
Read it alongside average nightly rate
High occupancy at a very low rate isn't automatically a win, and low occupancy at a high rate isn't automatically a loss. Occupancy rate is most useful combined with average nightly rate into RevPAR, rather than read alone.
Read the full breakdown of occupancy rate vs. average nightly rate →