The terms that come up in the day-to-day running of a property, explained in a few sentences.
Each entry says what the term means and where HANS takes the work off your hands. The metrics use the same formulas as the reports in HANS.
A PMS is the hotel software in which an accommodation business manages its rooms, bookings, guests, rates and invoices. “Hotel software” and “PMS” mean the same program: one is the everyday word, the other the industry’s abbreviation.
HANS is a PMS for properties of every size. The occupancy calendar, portal connections, direct bookings, correspondence and guest registration run in one system instead of separate tools.
More about HANS in South TyrolAn OTA is a booking portal such as Booking.com, Expedia or Airbnb. It sells rooms on behalf of the property and keeps a commission on each booking. For many properties the portals bring reach, but they cost a share of every sale.
Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia are connected live in HANS. Bookings from them land in the calendar without anyone typing them in.
More about the Channel ManagerA channel manager keeps all of a property’s sales channels in step: free rooms, rates and stay rules go out to every portal, and each booking closes the night on all the others. Without one, every channel is maintained by hand, and a room is quickly sold twice.
In HANS it is called the Channel Engine and is an add-on module. It works on the same calendar as the front desk and the website. There is no second program with its own version of the truth.
More about the Channel ManagerAlpineBits is an open interface standard, created in the Alpine region, for exchanging availability, rates and enquiries between hotel software and booking platforms. Where both sides speak it, a connection needs no custom build.
HANS speaks AlpineBits, so a portal with an AlpineBits interface can be connected today. Which connections make sense for your property is something we work out during setup.
More about the Channel ManagerA booking engine is the booking flow on the property’s own website: choose dates, choose a room, enter details, pay. It turns the website into a sales channel with no portal commission.
The HANS booking widget only shows what is free in the calendar, prices with your rate plan and creates the booking in the system straight away. It is embedded with a snippet of code your agency finds in the dashboard.
More about the booking widgetA direct booking reaches the property without an intermediary: through its own website, by email or by phone. The property pays no commission and has contact with the guest from the start. The direct share measures how many bookings come in this way.
For the direct share, HANS counts confirmed bookings through the property’s own widget and divides them by all confirmed bookings. It counts bookings, not revenue.
More about direct bookingsMCP is an open standard that lets AI apps such as Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini use the tools and data of other software. Software that offers an MCP server can be operated from the chat: the AI calls the tools when a question needs them.
HANS offers an MCP server. Connected through the HANS sign-in, the AI reads occupancy, bookings, enquiries and KPIs and changes rates, each time only after a preview and your confirmation.
More about AI agents in HANSStay rules set how a room may be booked: the minimum or maximum number of nights, and the weekdays on which guests can arrive or depart. In high season they prevent gaps between two bookings; in low season they can be relaxed.
In HANS the rules belong to the rate plan’s period and go out to every connected channel along with the rates. You maintain them in one place.
More about the Channel ManagerOverbooking happens when more bookings are accepted for the same night than there are rooms. It usually occurs when two channels sell at the same time without knowing about each other. Closing a room for sale on all channels is called a stop-sell.
HANS counts how many units are occupied each night. When it gets tight, a warning appears in the calendar and the daily check before a second booking lands on the same night.
More about the occupancy calendarWith double opt-in the guest confirms their sign-up a second time, usually through a link in an email. This proves the address belongs to them and that they wanted to subscribe. For newsletters to new prospects it is the usual form of proof in Germany, Austria and Italy.
For every consent HANS records when and where it came from and which wording the guest agreed to. The checkbox in the booking and enquiry widgets is never pre-ticked.
More about newsletters & guest automationsSoft opt-in allows marketing for similar own products to customers who have already bought, even without explicit consent. Conditions: the address comes from the purchase, the customer was told about the right to object at that point, and every email contains an unsubscribe option.
In HANS soft opt-in is a switch per property. When it is on, the booking widget shows the notice with the option to object, and the newsletter only counts addresses from confirmed bookings without cancellation or no-show.
More about newsletters & guest automationsA voucher system sells vouchers, assigns unique numbers and keeps a record of what was redeemed when. For a hotel it includes a shop on its own website, a voucher to print or forward and a redemption that handles partial amounts.
In HANS the voucher widget sells on your website, the PDF carries the number as a QR code, and the front desk redeems on the bill, at check-out or in the spa. Any remainder stays on the voucher.
More about the voucher widgetThe room night is the basic unit of hotel statistics: one room for one night. A three-night booking in two rooms makes six room nights. Occupancy, ADR and RevPAR are all calculated from it.
The reports in HANS distinguish sold from available room nights. Available means the units of the visible room types multiplied by the days in the period.
More about the occupancy calendarOccupancy tells you what share of the rooms was sold. It is calculated as sold room nights divided by available room nights. A 20-room property that sells 420 room nights in 30 days has 70% occupancy.
In HANS, closures and stop-sells do not shrink the base. A closed room counts as available and unsold.
More about the occupancy calendarADR is the average price of a sold room night: room revenue divided by sold room nights. If 420 room nights bring in €50,400 of room revenue, the ADR is €120.
HANS deliberately leaves extras out, so the figure stays comparable with the previous year and the industry. The reports show it per period and per channel.
More about the occupancy calendarRevPAR spreads room revenue across all rooms, including the empty ones: room revenue divided by available room nights, or simply ADR times occupancy. With a €120 ADR and 70% occupancy it comes to €84. It shows whether a higher rate was worth the empty nights.
Alongside RevPAR, the reports in HANS show TRevPAR, which includes extras. The gap between the two is exactly what the extras contribute.
More about the occupancy calendarALOS is the average length of stay: nights stayed divided by confirmed bookings. It is the lever behind minimum stays and arrival days, because shorter stays mean more changeovers and more cleaning.
The reports in HANS show the average length of stay next to the lead time, the median number of days between booking and arrival.
More about the occupancy calendarAccommodation businesses in South Tyrol report their guests’ arrivals and overnight stays every day for the ASTAT provincial statistics. The report goes through the portal of LTS, the provincial tourism company.
HANS compiles the daily report overnight from the stays and submits it. By morning there is a receipt for every submission in the system, and a later change replaces that day’s report.
More about guest registrationAlloggiati Web is the Italian State Police portal to which every accommodation business reports its guests. The obligation comes from Art. 109 TULPS: the details from the ID document go to the Questura within 24 hours of arrival.
HANS submits the police registration in the same overnight run as the provincial report, from the same record. If a guest is missing a required detail, the daily check shows it while they are still in the house.
More about guest registrationThe tourist tax is a charge per guest and night that the property collects and pays to the municipality. In South Tyrol it is the Gemeindeaufenthaltsabgabe, elsewhere in Italy the imposta di soggiorno. The amount depends on the municipality and the property’s category; in South Tyrol children under 14 are exempt.
HANS calculates it from the stay. It appears as its own line on the invoice and as its own total in the reports, so settling with the municipality starts from a number that is already there.
More about guest registrationThe South Tyrol Guest Pass is the guest card that lets overnight guests use public transport and, depending on the area, other offers during their stay. The property activates it through LTS, provided the local tourist board has enabled it for the property.
If the Guest Pass is enabled for your property, HANS activates the cards at check-in from the stay. You don’t need a second portal for it.
More about the Guest PassThe Trentino Guest Card is Trentino's guest card. Guests of participating properties ride buses and trains across Trentino with it and get free or reduced entry to museums and castles. It is activated in the Mio Trentino app.
HANS issues the card from the stay, at check-in if you like. The guest receives the code by email.
More about the Guest CardThe CIN is the national identification number every accommodation in Italy has carried since 2025. It must be visible at the entrance and in every advertisement for the property, on portals as well as on its own website.
In HANS you enter the CIN once in the settings. It then also appears in the footer of every embedded widget, because a booking widget on the website counts as an advertisement too.
More about the booking widgetWith online check-in, guests enter their registration details themselves before arrival, for themselves and everyone travelling with them. Nothing has to be typed in at the front desk, and the report to the authorities has all the details together.
In HANS, self check-in opens seven days before arrival through the link in the pre-arrival email. Guests identify themselves with booking number, email address and last name; they don’t need an account.
More about the guest portalProvincial grant for micro-businesses introducing digital technology: 60 % of eligible spending, which must be between €2,000 and €15,000 per application, as de minimis aid. The programme runs from 2025 to 2028. Applications go by certified email (PEC) to the responsible provincial office by 30 September each year, before the project starts.
Software licences are eligible, and the HANS offer can be submitted as a whole. You attach it to the application as the cost estimate.
About the digitalisation grantTell us which term you come across in your day-to-day work that isn’t here. We’ll add it.
The best way to see what these terms look like in HANS is on your own property. Write to us.
Running a property in South Tyrol? Hotel software South Tyrol: what HANS does here on top