Building the 90-day OTB curve from scratch

A 90-day OTB curve is a spreadsheet with 90 columns (one per stay date) and rows for each segment, channel, and rate plan. The total at the bottom is your current OTB for the next 90 days. The shape of the curve — where it spikes, where it dips, where pace is positive vs. negative — is the single most useful artifact you produce each week.

What goes in

Where the data comes from

Most PMS systems can export a rooms-on-the-books report by stay date, segment, and rate plan. The export is usually CSV or XLS, often with column headers that are not standardized. The first 4-6 hours of building the curve is mapping the PMS export into your template format. Once mapped, refreshing the curve takes 8-15 minutes per day.

What the curve reveals

Three patterns are diagnostic. First: a date with low OTB and slow pickup is a date that needs price action (drop a restriction, open a rate plan, increase OTA visibility). Second: a date with high OTB and fast pickup is a date that needs price discipline (close a low rate, restrict LOS, push direct). Third: a 7-14 day window where pace is consistently -20% or worse is a market signal — there is a demand shift you need to investigate, not a pricing problem you can solve.

The cadence

A practitioner-level revenue manager refreshes the curve every morning before the standup and reviews the deltas in 5 minutes. A weekly deep-dive (30-40 minutes) compares this week's curve to last week's, identifies what moved, and writes the variance commentary that goes into the Friday meeting.