When you manage the short-term rental of an apartment or a house, a handful of everyday words take on a very specific meaning. Get them straight and the rest of revenue management is much easier to follow. Here are the key ones, in plain language.
Short-term rental (STR)
In English this is a short-term rental, a stay generally capped at 30 days. It is the opposite of a long-term lease: shorter stays, more turnover, and a price that can change every night.
Guest
Here the customer is the guest, someone who books a property for 1 to 30 days. Tourism is the usual reason, but plenty of guests travel for work, for an event, to visit family, for medical treatment, or for a course or conference. The reason matters, because it shapes when they book and how price-sensitive they are.
Price and ADR
Price is more than the number per night. It covers the whole rate structure: the base price by date, the cost per extra guest, promotions, and how the cancellation policy is reflected in what you charge. The metric you will hear most is ADR (average daily rate), the average price actually booked per night. ADR on its own can mislead, which is why it travels with the next two.
Occupancy and RevPAR
Occupancy is the share of available nights that get booked. RevPAR (revenue per available night) folds price and occupancy into one number, and it is the one that matters: a high ADR with empty nights, or a full calendar at a low price, can both be worse than a balanced middle. The goal is never occupancy for its own sake, it is maximum income.
Availability, minimum stay and booking window
Availability is how you configure the calendar: the minimum and maximum stay you allow, how far ahead the property can be booked (the booking window), and the daily, dynamic management of which dates are open. A minimum stay that is too long can quietly block bookable nights; too short can fragment your calendar. It is a lever, not a set-and-forget setting. We dug into one side of this in how to set your Airbnb minimum stay.
Lead time
Lead time is the gap between the moment a guest books and the night they stay. Last-minute bookings and far-out bookings behave very differently, and a good pricing strategy treats them differently.
Channel and OTA
The main channel for a short-term rental is an OTA (online travel agency): Airbnb, Booking.com, Vrbo, Expedia. They group everything guests and managers need in one place. List on several at once and you reach more demand, but you also have to keep calendars and prices in sync, which is the job of a channel manager.
PMS and RMS
Two acronyms worth separating. A PMS (property management system) runs the operation: calendars, messaging, owner statements, distribution. An RMS (revenue management system) runs the pricing: it monitors the market and adjusts rates. They are different jobs, and most pricing tools are an RMS, not a PMS.
Put together, these terms describe the daily reality of running short-term rentals well: read the market, set the right price and stay rules for each listing, keep the channels in sync, and measure with RevPAR rather than occupancy alone. If you would rather have an expert handle that routine than learn every lever yourself, that is exactly what a revenue management service does.
Miguel
Miguel Roig Gimbernat is Partner at ListingOK, specializing in Revenue Management for vacation rentals and short-term rentals. With over 15 years of experience in technology, pricing, and revenue management, he helps property managers and hosts maximize their profitability on Airbnb and Booking.com through real market data and expert supervision. He combines expertise in data, platforms and technology with marketing to transform market intelligence into revenue decisions that boost profitability.
