Hospitality, Tourism, and Recreation
Core concepts
This domain covers the hospitality and tourism system: lodging, foodservice, meetings and events, attractions, transportation, and recreation. Know the segments (commercial versus noncommercial foodservice; full-service versus limited-service lodging), the guest cycle (pre-arrival, arrival, occupancy, departure), and revenue metrics-occupancy rate, average daily rate (ADR), revenue per available room (RevPAR = occupancy × ADR). Tourism concepts include the push-pull model of motivation, destination life cycle, carrying capacity, and economic, social, and environmental impacts. Recreation content includes programming, therapeutic recreation, and risk management (waivers, supervision, emergency action plans). Service quality models such as SERVQUAL (reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, tangibles) appear frequently.
Traps
Questions confuse ADR with RevPAR, or ask for occupancy when given rooms sold and rooms available-divide, don't multiply. Another trap is treating carrying capacity as unlimited growth potential; exceeding it degrades the destination. Watch for risk-management stems where the correct answer is prevention and documentation, not just a waiver.
Worked example
A 200-room hotel sells 150 rooms at an ADR of $120. Rule of thumb: occupancy = 150/200 = 75%; RevPAR = 0.75 × $120 = $90 (equivalently, room revenue $18,000 ÷ 200 rooms). If asked which metric best captures total room revenue performance, choose RevPAR.
Rule of thumb
For revenue questions, identify rooms sold, rooms available, and rate-then apply the formula rather than estimating.