Revenue Management
MLOS — Minimum Length of Stay
A restriction requiring a minimum number of nights to book a date.
Academic definition
Minimum Length of Stay (MLOS) is a restriction that requires a guest to book at least a specified number of nights in order to reserve a particular date. It is a yield-management control used primarily to protect high-demand dates and to spread demand into adjacent lower-demand nights. By requiring, for example, a two- or three-night minimum over a peak event, a hotel prevents short bookings from consuming inventory on the highest-demand night while leaving surrounding nights unsold, and it can lift overall occupancy across the period. MLOS can be applied by arrival date or across a date range, and is often combined with other restrictions such as closed to arrival. The trade-off is that an overly aggressive minimum can deflect demand entirely to competitors without the restriction, so MLOS is set with reference to forecast demand strength and the booking pace for the dates concerned.
Worked example
For a festival Saturday in heavy demand, a hotel imposes a two-night MLOS, so a guest who wanted only Saturday must also take Friday — filling a shoulder night that would otherwise have gone unsold.
The ProfitPAR™ lens
MLOS is a fence built in nights instead of rupees, and used well it is a profit instrument, not just an occupancy one. By forcing a longer booking over a peak, it does two things at once: it captures the high-demand night and it pulls demand onto the shoulder nights that would otherwise sit empty, and those extra nights arrive with their acquisition cost already paid by the first. ProfitPAR™ reads MLOS through the leak math — a two-night minimum that converts a single high-cost arrival into two revenue nights lifts retained profit per room even if the headline rate holds flat. Set it too high and you simply hand the booking to a rival; set it to demand, and it compounds margin.
A minimum stay turns one expensive arrival into several profitable nights.
Measure what each room actually keeps.
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Request an InvitationWorked examples use illustrative figures in Indian Rupee (₹) with lakh/crore conventions. They are composite and representative, not drawn from any single property. ProfitPAR™ is a trademark of Sibasish Misra.