Hotel contract data guide
How to turn a hotel rate contract into reviewable data
A useful extraction result is more than a spreadsheet of numbers. It keeps each rate tied to the room, board basis, dates, currency, conditions and source that give it meaning.
Start with the source, not the target table
Hotel contracts arrive as PDFs, scans and spreadsheets. A single document may put room names on one page, seasonal dates on another and exceptions in footnotes. Before mapping anything into a pricing system, identify the hotel, contract period, currency and the pages or cells that support each term.
Treat an extracted value as a proposal to review. If the source says “HB” beside a rate, the board basis belongs with that rate; if a date range is unclear, do not silently stretch it to fill a gap. Preserve the original document so a reviewer can trace a questionable value back to its wording.
Build a record that preserves the relationships
For each price, record at least the room or occupancy it applies to, board basis, start and end dates, amount and currency. Keep hotel identity and contract version with the record. Child pricing, supplements, cancellation rules and special offers may need separate structures because they do not behave like a base room rate.
An illustrative line such as “SGL/DBL HB 84,00, 01.11–20.12” cannot safely become “84” alone. The room meaning, half-board condition, decimal convention, year, currency and whether the amount is per person or per room must be established from the surrounding contract. If the document does not resolve one of those details, flag it for review.
Check what automation cannot decide confidently
Compare the structured fields with the document before approval. Look for missing room categories, season overlaps, a currency change halfway through the file, and rates that contradict an earlier table or amendment. A blank field can be safer than a guessed one when the source is ambiguous.
Give reviewers a way to correct individual fields and see the source context. That turns extraction into a repeatable process: the team can focus on exceptions while still being accountable for the final commercial terms.
Approve before sending data onward
Only reviewed data should be exported or synced to a downstream pricing system. Keep the source document and the approved structured version together so later amendments can be compared with the terms that were actually accepted.
The goal is not to remove contract expertise from the workflow. It is to remove repetitive transcription and make the points that need human judgment visible before a wrong rate reaches a customer-facing channel.