No-show

A confirmed reservation where the guest never arrives and never cancels.

The guest is normally charged under the rate's cancellation policy, the room is released, and the reservation is cancelled in the PMS with "no show" recorded as the reason. No-show rate, the share of confirmed arrivals that fail to turn up, is a standard operating metric and a direct input into how aggressively a property overbooks.

The metric is only as good as what the PMS counts. Many systems also auto-cancel reservations that were never confirmed in the first place, such as inquiries or optional holds that sat untouched past their arrival date. If those land under the same cancellation reason as a genuine no-show, the reported figure is inflated, and the inflation is invisible unless you group the Cancelled state by reason. Systems that separate the two use a distinct reason for the unconfirmed group, along the lines of "confirmation missed".

Worth checking before you compare one month against another, because a change in how the PMS classifies cancellations will move the number without anything changing on the floor.

Related terms: pick-up, occupancy rate, rate plan.