The LexiconNo. 07Design
Comp set
nounHotel development
The small group of hotels a property genuinely competes with for the same guests — used to benchmark its product, prices and performance, and to test a new project against the market rather than against taste.
- In use
- “Against the comp set, the rooms were large and the rates were low.”
- Also called
- competitive set · competitor set
What is a hotel comp set — and how is it chosen?
A comp set — short for competitive set — is the handful of hotels a property genuinely competes with for the same guests. Owners use it to benchmark their product, prices and performance. Developers use it earlier, to test whether a new project makes sense before a line is drawn.
How do you choose a comp set?
By asking where your guests would stay if you were full. Not the grandest hotels in the city, and not every hotel on the street — the few properties that chase the same guest, for the same reason, at a similar price. Location, positioning, size and facilities all count. A comp set chosen to flatter the property is useless; one chosen honestly is the most useful table an owner will read.
A comp set chosen to flatter the property is useless.
What does it measure?
Three things. Product: room sizes, room count, restaurants, spa, meeting space — what each property actually offers. Price: the rates each one charges, by season and by channel. Performance: occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room, usually from a benchmarking service such as STR. Put together, they show where the gap in the market is — and where it isn’t.
Why does it matter before design?
Because it keeps the design brief honest. The comp set shows what guests in this market already get and what they pay for it — so the room size, the number of restaurants and the size of the spa are set by evidence rather than ambition. It is one of the first documents in a project, alongside the feasibility study and the Area Program.
Does it change?
Yes. New hotels open, old ones renovate, and a property’s own positioning can move. A comp set should be reviewed as the market changes — one that no longer reflects it produces comforting numbers and bad decisions.
Common questions
How many hotels should be in a comp set?
Enough for a fair comparison and few enough to stay relevant — usually a handful. Benchmarking services such as STR set their own rules on the minimum size, so that no single competitor’s figures can be identified.
What is STR?
A hotel benchmarking service. Hotels share their performance data, and STR reports how a property performs against its chosen comp set — occupancy, average daily rate and revenue per available room.
Can a new hotel have a comp set before it opens?
Yes. At development stage the comp set is built from the hotels the project will compete with, using public information and market data — and it shapes the brief, the feasibility study and the Area Program.
Do restaurants use comp sets?
Informally, yes — the places your guests would book instead. Benchmarking data is thinner than for hotels, but menus, prices, covers and reviews tell you a lot.