The 12th edition of the Uniform System of Accounts for the Lodging Industry was ratified by the Global Finance Committee and will be released next month. The changes will officially go into effect on Jan. 1, 2026.

This edition of USALI features six major changes from the previous edition: expanded detail for material executive lounge operations; enhanced reporting of loyalty program expenses; the addition of waste along with energy and water to the utilities department; new payroll full-time equivalent employee schedule; new annual mandatory brand and operator costs schedule; and added guidance for all-inclusive hotel reporting.

Below is a breakdown of what these changes entail and why they were made.

Gina Tallarico, co-chair of the Global Finance Committee and senior vice president, global head of acquisition integration for Hyatt Hotels Corp., said an increased focus on executive lounge operations came about after the committee added more member representation from Europe and Asia.

"Executive lounge operations in Asia, for example, tend to be more significant than it does in other parts of the world, and those stakeholders from the region had expressed a desire for more transparency, which aligns to greater decision-making," Tallarico said.

With the change, executive lounge revenues and expenses can be broken down if the cost is material.

There was a desire among USALI stakeholders to provide better transparency around loyalty program costs. The 12th edition will have new accounts in both the rooms and sales and marketing departments.

Costs to deliver on-property member benefits such as complimentary breakfast and bottled water will be recorded in a new account called "loyalty program member benefits" in the rooms department, while the assessments on paid stays and the cost of promotional points will remain in sales and marketing but are now separated on different accounts, Tallarico said.

There's been a shift recently in hotel properties being mandated to report energy usage to cities, states and municipalities. Raymond Martz, co-chair of the Global Finance Committee and co-president and chief financial officer at Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, said committee members realized utilities didn't cover all the bases in USALI's energy usage reporting.

"Waste ... is in property operations and maintenance currently, kind of buried in there and not really looked at much or monitored. But when you take a step back and understand what creates greenhouse gases and emissions in those areas, it is clearly your energy usage, it's your water usage, but it's also waste. Waste is a big part of your energy emissions, but it's kind of lost in there," he said.

Adding waste to energy and water in the utilities department will help hotels better monitor the costs in these areas and make the reporting process easier, Martz said.

Labor is the biggest expense at a hotel, said John Houghton, senior vice president of business analytics at Aimbridge Hospitality. Keeping staffing organized can be key to optimizing those costs.

"With this new informational schedule, this will allow owners and even operators to quickly identify where there might be opportunity overages in key areas of the hotel," Houghton said.

Management and non-management positions, along with a total for the entire hotel by department, will be featured in the new schedule to show overages or savings in specific areas. There will be a formula included in the 12th edition that will show the number of hours worked over the number of hours in the standard work week multiplied by the number of days in the period.

The new brand and operator cost schedule was created so the process of lining up the costs associated with different brands and operators is simplified in a budget review, Houghton said.

"It'll also allow you to just quickly skim on one schedule, one page, everything that's hitting rooms, sales and marketing, [administrative and general expenses], so on and so forth," he said. "It'll give you a quick idea of [the] costs to operate the hotel under this brand and operator."

The all-inclusive hotel segment is growing, with investors and brands flocking to the space globally. Revisions made to its guidance took this into account, Tallarico said.

"What we have is the first-ever, unified reporting for all-inclusive, and I think it'll be very beneficial," she said. "Unified practices are really important."

Package revenue segmentation will be aligned with European Plan reporting, but revenue allocations will not be made to individual departments, she said. This is unique to the all-inclusive hotel segment, and it reflects the different operating model that hotels in this space have.

(Corrected on May 29 to update the date these changes will go into effect in the first paragraph.)

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