Use case · GOP %

Why did GOP % decrease although occupancy increased?

More rooms sold, yet gross operating profit % fell. WaterfallBridge shows whether it was rate, cost, or the mix of segments that filled those rooms.

The question

"Occupancy went up this period — we sold more — but our GOP % dropped. Which segments caused it, and was it lower rates, higher costs, or simply the type of business we took?"

Why traditional methods struggle

Volume and profitability point in opposite directions. Occupancy is up but the rate metric is down — a single dashboard tile can't reconcile that.
GOP % is a ratio. You cannot average segment percentages to recover the blended GOP %; mix weighting matters.
A new segment appeared. Group business was added this period, so a like-for-like read is impossible by hand.
Rate, cost and mix are tangled together in a manual variance and almost never cleanly separated.

How WaterfallBridge breaks it down

Set the Result to GOP %, with SumY = GOP (numerator) and SumN = Revenue (denominator), broken down by the Key = Segment. With the prior period as baseline and the current period as comparison, WaterfallBridge attributes the GOP % change to each segment and isolates the impact of the newly added group segment and the mix shift.

Example input data

Illustrative figures. Three segments — Group is new this period.

Segment	Period	Revenue (SumN)	GOP (SumY)	GOP %
Corporate	Baseline	100	40	40.0%
Corporate	Comparison	90	34	37.8%
Leisure	Baseline	60	21	35.0%
Leisure	Comparison	80	24	30.0%
Group new	Comparison	50	10	20.0%
Total	Baseline	160	61	38.1%
Total	Comparison	220	68	30.9%

Revenue (a proxy for occupancy) rose +60 (160 → 220) while GOP % fell −7.2 pp (38.1% → 30.9%).

Example output: the GOP % bridge

Contribution of each segment to the −7.2 pp GOP change (illustrative).

Driver	Contribution to GOP %	Effect
Baseline GOP %	38.1%	start
Corporate — rate/cost softening	−0.8 pp	down
Leisure — discounting (35% → 30%)	−1.9 pp	down
Group — added (low 20% GOP)	−4.0 pp	down
Mix shift toward lower-rate business	−0.5 pp	down
Comparison GOP %	30.9%	end

The conclusion

The extra occupancy was real, but it came from the wrong places. Adding the Group segment at just 20% GOP cost ~4.0 pp, and Leisure was discounted from 35% to 30% to drive volume, costing another ~1.9 pp. Corporate, the most profitable segment, actually shrank. The lesson: the occupancy gain was "bought" with low-margin business. The action is to protect Corporate volume and reprice Group and Leisure.

Occupancy up + GOP % down is almost always a mix story. The bridge proves it and quantifies each segment.

FAQ

Why did GOP % decrease although occupancy increased?

GOP % can fall while occupancy rises when the extra demand is filled with lower-rate, lower-margin segments (such as group or discounted business), when variable costs grow faster than revenue, or when a new low-margin segment is added. WaterfallBridge decomposes the GOP % change by segment so you can see whether it was rate, cost or segment mix that drove the rate down even as volume grew.

Explain your own GOP or margin change

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