Hotel Competitor Analysis: Reports, Comp Sets & Insights

Today’s hotel guests are more informed and selective than ever. With unprecedented access to reviews, websites, and social media, travelers rely heavily on public sentiment when choosing where to stay. In fact, 89% of travelers say reviews influence their booking decisions. In a market defined by transparency and comparison, it is critical for hotel businesses to stand out. 

Staying ahead in this landscape is synonymous with being data-driven, which is precisely how you should approach competitor analysis. By looking at their property in the context of their competitors, hoteliers can have a proactive management strategy.

This article outlines best practices for hotel competitor analysis and highlights the most common mistakes to avoid. 

 

What is Competitor Analysis in the Hotel Industry?

Hotel industry competitive analysis is the process of assessing a hotel in the context of its competitors to recognize the strengths and weaknesses unique to the property. By benchmarking against other comparable or interchangeable products on the market, hoteliers can understand where their property has room for improvement or which of their existing offerings are their competitive advantage.

For instance, is your hotel the only one in the bunch with a swimming pool? Make sure to market it as the go-to hangout spot for those scorching summer days, surely shadowing any competitor offerings.

Competitive set or comp set analysis differs from broader market analysis in the sense that the latter focuses on a much wider scope of indicators, such as development in the vicinity of your hotel or even macro-level considerations such as consumer purchasing power.

In contrast, a comp set analysis focuses on data of a set of hotels chosen based on specific selection criteria, allowing for a different view of your hotel’s performance. 

Why Hotel Competitor Analysis is Important

Understanding your hotel’s competitive landscape can be a game-changer for your business. By choosing a competitive set and assessing your hotel’s performance against your peers, decisions on pricing, positioning, and revenue management strategy can be data-backed.

Competitor analysis also helps hoteliers identify untapped demand (read: untapped revenue), fine-tune marketing communications, and better understand guest expectations. A hotel that understands how it stacks up is a hotel that can lead, not follow.

By staying up to date on competitor activities, you can spot trends that can be taken advantage of, such as providing remote working spaces for guests; or even better, become a trend-setter, bringing something new to the market to attract new demographics and gain market share.

What is a Hotel Comp Set?

A competitive set or comp set is a group of hotels meant to reflect the options your potential client is assessing when booking a stay, that is, your competitors. The selection criteria for a comp set can include: 

• Location: Hotels in your immediate area or comparable destinations
• Scale: Hotels of a similar size, star rating, or pricing tier
• Amenities: Comparable offerings like event space, restaurants, wellness facilities, or parking

The goal of having clear selection criteria is to ensure the comparison is valid. When the competitor hotels closely match your offering, it becomes easier to identify what makes your hotel stand out—and what might be missing.

Don’t overlook qualitative sources when creating a comp set. Customer reviews, OTA rankings, and surveys offer real insight into how guests perceive different hotels. The comp set should reflect the booking journey from the guest’s perspective. 

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Pro tip: Think beyond geography. If you manage a luxury golf resort in rural Scotland, your competitors might not be the hotels down the road, but other golf resort destinations across Europe. Always ask yourself: “What other options are my guests actually considering?” 

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One Hotel, Many Comp Sets

While many hoteliers focus on creating a single comp set for the entire property, the reality is that each business unit within your hotel faces a different competitive landscape.

While your rooms may compete with other similar properties nearby, clients might think your restaurant to be comparable to local fine dining venues that are not attached to a hotel.

Similarly, a hotel spa might get a lot of external clients and compete with standalone wellness centers.

Creating separate comp sets for your spa, golf course, and F&B outlets allows you to tailor pricing, packages, and promotions based on the specificities of each market.

By segmenting your competitor analysis, you get a more accurate picture, as the different business units are evaluated in their appropriate contexts.

How to Perform Hotel Competitor Analysis

After selecting the comp set, the next step is choosing the metrics to compare. Common metrics include:

• Occupancy Rate
• Average Daily Rate (ADR)
• Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR)
• Guest ratings and OTA reviews 

Some hoteliers find visual tools like scatter plots or performance dashboards useful for comparing positioning. These help illustrate whether your hotel is underperforming or overperforming versus the competition. 

To go deeper, consider a SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threaths). Your strength might be consistently outperforming the market on guest satisfaction, while your weak spot is a lagging RevPAR.

Opportunities could lie in pricing strategies, and threats include new market entrants or shifting guest preferences.

Whatever the method, the goal is the same: an actionable plan, leading to decisions that make your hotel more competitive and ultimately, more profitable.

Data Sources for Hotel Competitor Analysis

To perform an effective hotel competitor analysis, both quantitative and qualitative data sources are needed from a variety of sources. From industry reports to customer sentiment, all data streams offer a different point of view on your hotel’s position.

Below, we explore the most useful sources hoteliers can tap into – both digital and human. 

Hotel Competitor Reports

There is a lot of market data available through industry platforms such as STR and HotStats. Reports from these sources help with assessing metrics such as occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR within a comp set or against industry standards.

Tools like STR’s STAR report provide very detailed data, which can help evaluate your hotel’s performance in real time, reflecting how seasonality and specific events affect your property compared to competitors.

The context offered by these reports is critical. For example, if all hotels in the comp set show a decline in RevPAR for a particular month, it could point to a broader slump in demand rather than an internal issue.

Guest Reviews, Social Media, and Surveys

Qualitative data is just as important as the quantitative information offered by benchmarking reports. Online reviews on OTAs, Google, TripAdvisor, and social media comments are gold mines when assessing guest sentiment towards your comp set, revealing what your guests value most (and where your competitors might fall short).

A simple grid of your hotel’s reviews versus those of competitors is free to compile and can be very helpful. Whether conducted internally or by a third party, surveys can also illuminate guest preferences when combined with competitor feedback.

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Pro tip: Remember that review scores might be incomparable if the number of reviews vastly differs between the comp set properties – a five-star rating on Google with only one review does not say much on its own. 

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Staff Input

No one is closer to your guests and competition than your frontline teams. Housekeeping staff might overhear guest opinions, and front desk teams often hear direct comparisons to other hotels. Encourage your staff to keep their ears open and to share what they notice.

Open Sharing Between Competitors 

Sometimes, the most innovative strategy is not to outcompete, but to align, as all players benefit from a transparent market. A great example of collaboration between competitors comes from the Grindelwald region in Switzerland, where the new generation of hoteliers meet regularly to share updates, challenges, and local wins.

Instead of focusing their energy on competing against each other, the hotels have agreed to compete together against larger rival destinations like Interlaken to attract demand from them.

Furthermore, the hotels have taken a collective stance against OTA bidding, which means paying for higher placements on websites such as Booking.com. The result is fairer competition with healthier margins.

This kind of open-market collaboration shows that comp set awareness does not always mean aggressive rivalry but can open doors for joint development and growth as a destination.

How to Turn Competitor Insights into Hotel Strategy

Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors compared to your own is an important part of strategic management and organizational learning. Regular competitor analysis helps you to clarify or update your hotel strategy and to respond effectively to a constantly changing environment.

Dr. Stefan Güldenberg, Masters Professor at EHL and Academic Director at EHL’s Graduate School

Collecting data is only half of the story. The real value of doing a competitor analysis is what you do with the gathered information.

Let’s say you’ve found that your ADR is significantly lower than similar hotels, even though your guest reviews are stronger. This could signal that your property is undervalued, meaning there is an opportunity to raise rates gradually while reinforcing your unique selling points through marketing.

Or maybe you notice your competitors offering perks that add value to the guest experience, like flexible check-in or late check-out, that are winning them customer loyalty. The goal is to close the gap between offerings while being mindful about what serves your clients best.

As mentioned, your advertising strategy can benefit significantly from a competitor analysis, as you can determine what amenities or offerings to emphasize in communications. Ultimately, you want to position your hotel where it can thrive with data-backed insights.

Common Pitfalls in Hotel Competitor Analysis

As with any analysis, the quality of the conclusions matters, and there are some pitfalls to avoid. One of the most common mistakes hotels make is mindlessly copying their competitors’ offerings and marketing without understanding their underlying strategy.

What works for one hotel might not work for another, as operational costs, business mix, and brand identity could differ significantly from one property to another.

Another misstep is relying solely on quantitative KPIs. Numbers matter, but so do guest perceptions and expectations. Guest sentiment is available when eyes are kept open, asking staff about guest interactions and feedback, and staying up to date with reviews.

Finally, not revising your comp set over time can lead to inaccurate and outdated conclusions. The hotel landscape changes quickly, with new openings, renovations, and rebrands that can shift competitive dynamics in just a few months. Make it a habit to reassess your comp set regularly.

Getting Started

If you haven’t already done a competitor analysis, what are you waiting for?

It is a simple tool that can have immense benefits for your business. Finding what makes your property unique can serve as the north star for everything from daily operations to the long-term vision for your property.

Just make sure not to copy and paste what competitors are doing, as authenticity ultimately draws customers in and keeps them coming back for more. 

FAQ: Hotel Competitor Analysis  

What is a hotel comp set?

A competitive set (comp set) is a group of hotels that are comparable to your property, used to benchmark your hotel’s performance based on key metrics such as pricing, occupancy, and guest satisfaction.

How often should I update my competitor analysis?

Ideally, every quarter or at least any time there is a significant change in your market, such as new hotel openings, renovations, or changes in guest demographics.

Do small hotels need a competitor analysis?

Absolutely. Smaller hotels may benefit the most from competitor analysis. Public data, such as online reviews and guest interactions, can be just as insightful as expensive reports for staying competitive. 

Emma NÄPÄNKANGAS – M.Sc. Student in Hospitality Management at EHL and Hospitality Strategy writer. Connect with Emma on LinkedIn.

This article originally appeared on EHL Insights.