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# Lesson 3 · Pickup and booking pace
Lesson 3 — pace is the level you have reached, pickup is the speed you are adding at. Learn to read them together, because either one alone will mislead you.
{% hint style="info" %}
**In this lesson.** You will be able to say what pickup and pace each measure, explain why a strong date can still be in trouble, and read the 4 combinations of the two. **About 30 minutes.**
{% endhint %}
## The 2 questions to ask
Lesson 2 measured a night that has already happened. Everything from here on is about dates in the future, and a future date needs 2 questions, not 1.
**How full are we?** That is **pace** — the running total you have booked for that date.
**How quickly is it filling?** That is **pickup** — what you added recently.
*The booking curve climbs towards the arrival date. Pace is how high you are. Pickup is how much you climbed this week.*
## Pickup in detail
**Pickup** is the change in what is on the books over a recent period, for a single arrival date. The period is 7 days by default.
Three things about it catch people out.
**It is a net figure.** Cancellations inside the period are subtracted from new bookings. So pickup can be negative even in a week when you took plenty of new business.
**It only covers stay dates from today onwards.** Past dates cannot change, so they are not in it.
**The window changes what you see, not the data.** Revhero offers `-7 Days`, `-14 Days` and `-30 Days`.
| Window | Use it for |
| ---------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **-7 Days** | Daily yielding, and any short-term decision such as a rate move |
| **-14 Days** or **-30 Days** | Confirming a trend, rather than reacting to 1 unusual week |
You can read pickup as Room Nights, Revenue, Occupancy, RevPAR or ADR. Room Nights and `-7 Days` are the defaults, and they are the right place to start.
## Pace in detail
**Pace** is how quickly bookings are building for a future date, shown against the same point in last year's booking curve.
That comparison is the important part. Comparing today's position against last year's **finished** result would always look bad, because last year had 12 more months to fill. You need last year measured at the same distance from arrival.
Lesson 4 covers that comparison properly.
## Reading pickup and pace together
Neither number is useful alone. Together they give you 4 readings, and each one calls for something different.
| Pace | Pickup | What it means | What to consider |
| ---------- | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Ahead** | **Positive** | Strong date, still building | You may be under-priced. Check the recommendation is moving up |
| **Ahead** | **Near zero** | You filled early and have now stopped | Normal late in a booking curve. Worrying if you are still 90 days out |
| **Behind** | **Positive** | Started slowly, now recovering | Often needs nothing. Watch it for another week before you cut |
| **Behind** | **Near zero or negative** | The date is in real trouble | Act. Consider rate, restrictions or a promotion |
The row most people misread is the third. A date that is behind last year but picking up healthily is usually fine. Cutting the rate there gives away revenue you were going to earn anyway.
{% hint style="warning" %}
A single large booking can produce a week of excellent pickup on its own. Hold your pointer over a day in the Pickup chart, and the tooltip breaks that day down by booking source. Check whether you are seeing broad demand or 1 group.
{% endhint %}
## Worked example
The 50-room hotel. Today is 4 June. The date is 15 August.
| What you read | Figure |
| ---------------------------------------------------- | ------------------ |
| OTB rooms for 15 August today | 23 |
| OTB rooms for 15 August a week ago | 18 |
| **7-day pickup** | **+5 rooms** |
| Rooms held for 15 August at the same point last year | 28 |
| **Pace against last year** | **−5 rooms, −18%** |
So: you are **behind** on pace and **positive** on pickup. That is row 3 of the table.
The reading is *started slowly, now recovering*. You are 72 days from arrival, and you are adding 5 rooms a week. At that speed you close a 5-room gap in a week, if the speed holds.
The wrong move is to cut the rate today. The right move is to look again in 7 days and check whether the speed held. If pickup falls to 1 or 2 next week, the date needs you. If it stays at 5, it does not.
## Try it on your own hotel
1. Open the [Dashboard](/revhero-docs/your-hotels-performance/dashboard.md) and find the [Pickup](/revhero-docs/your-hotels-performance/dashboard/pickup.md) widget.
2. Leave it on Room Nights and `-7 Days`. Write down the figure.
3. Hold your pointer over the 3 largest days in the chart. Note which channels produced them.
4. Switch the window to `-30 Days`. Does the week you just read look normal, or unusual?
5. Now open [Booking Pace](/revhero-docs/your-hotels-performance/dashboard/booking-pace.md) for the same period, and write down whether you are ahead or behind.
6. Write 1 sentence: *my pace is \_\_\_ and my pickup is \_\_\_, so this period is \_\_\_.*
Do steps 5 and 6 every morning for a week. Reading the pair together becomes automatic faster than you expect.
## Check yourself
**1.** Your 7-day pickup for September is −4 room nights, and you took 11 new bookings that week. How?
Answer
Pickup is net. You must have lost 15 room nights to cancellations inside the same 7 days. Eleven new bookings minus 15 cancelled gives −4.
**2.** A date is 18% behind last year's pace, and picked up 5 rooms in the last week. Your colleague wants to drop the rate by €20. What do you say?
Answer
Wait a week. Behind on pace with healthy pickup usually means a slow start that is recovering. Cutting now gives away revenue on bookings that were arriving anyway. Check next week's pickup before deciding.
**3.** Why would you read pickup on `-30 Days` rather than `-7 Days`?
Answer
To confirm a trend instead of reacting to 1 week. A single week can be distorted by a group booking, a public holiday or a cancellation. The longer window smooths that out.
## What you learned
* Pace is the level you have reached. Pickup is the speed you are adding at.
* Pickup is net of cancellations, so it can be negative.
* The 4 combinations of pace and pickup each call for a different response.
* Behind on pace with positive pickup is the one people over-react to.
## Next
* [Lesson 4 · LY, STLY and budget](/revhero-docs/learn-revhero/learn/04-choosing-a-comparison.md) — what "against last year" should actually mean.
* [Pickup](/revhero-docs/your-hotels-performance/dashboard/pickup.md) · [Booking Pace](/revhero-docs/your-hotels-performance/dashboard/booking-pace.md) — the widgets in detail.
***
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