Hotel Technology News published HotelData.com's H1 2026 labor report on 18 September 2026. The figures come from Hotel Effectiveness data on approximately 5,000 U.S. hotels.
The H1 print
Hours per Occupied Room fell 3.1 percent year over year in full-service hotels and 3.5 percent in select-service hotels. The averages behind those percentages are 0.810 falling to 0.785 in full service and 0.684 falling to 0.660 in select service.
HPOR was lower year over year in every month of the first half across both hotel types. Occupancy rose 1.1 percentage points over the same period. Gross operating profit margin gained 3.6 points, reported in HotelData.com's H1 Profitability Performance Report.
Where the minutes came from
Minutes per Occupied Room fell in every hourly housekeeping position the report tracked. Select-service room attendants moved from 24.01 minutes to 22.82, a decline of 5.0 percent and about 1.2 minutes per occupied room.
Full-service room attendants improved 2.7 percent, and full-service housepersons improved 2.7 percent.
The day-use reading
A day-use room turns over inside one day. Each window sold carries its own housekeeping reset, so the minutes per occupied room apply to every window a property sells on that room.
The largest decline sits in the room-attendant position, which is the position a day-use turnover schedule loads.
Sarah McCay Tams, head of research and editorial at Actabl, said: "When you drill into the position-level data, you see it down to the minute. Select Service room attendants recovered more than a minute per occupied room compared to a year ago."
The report states that the results do not establish that technology caused the productivity gains. The benchmark comes from the vendor's own sample of hotels and carries no hotel-level distribution, so the averages above are sample averages.