Student accommodation
Rebooking
Rebooking is a resident renewing their place for the next academic year, usually in a campaign that opens months before the current year ends. It is the part of occupancy that does not have to be found from outside, and the clearest sign of whether the people living in the building want to stay.
Also known asre-booking · rebooking campaign · renewal · rerreserva
How the campaign works
In British PBSA, rebooking is a campaign with dates: it opens months before the year ends, before the search for new residents begins, and gives whoever already lives in the building priority to stay, sometimes in the same room. In Spain private residences have copied the model, and colegios mayores (Spanish halls of residence with a formative programme) call it renewing a place. In many of them it is not automatic: it also depends on the academic progress and the conduct of the colegial during the year, and it usually comes with a deadline and a payment to confirm the place reservation.
For whoever runs the residence it has three advantages. It fills beds without having to go out and find them, it shows early on how many will have to be marketed outside, and it measures something the occupancy rate does not: whether people want to stay. A second-year resident also knows the building and its rules, and needs less help in September than a new one.
Worth knowing
Rebooking is decided during the year, not in the campaign. Whoever renews in February does so thinking about the repair that took weeks, the noise on their floor or how reception answered them one Sunday. That is why it makes sense to read it alongside the year's satisfaction surveys and maintenance tickets, and not only in the sales report.
Sources
Related terms
- Occupancy rateThe occupancy rate is the share of a residence's beds that are occupied or committed at a given moment or over a period. It is the first figure anyone looks at in a student building, because income depends on it, and so does almost everything calculated afterwards.
- Academic yearThe academic year is the period of classes and exams in a university year. In Spain it generally runs from September to June, with two semesters and exams in January or February and in June, and it is the unit in which places in a student residence are usually contracted.