Cover is a unit of measurement in the

hospitality industry The hospitality industry is a broad category of fields within the service industry that includes lodging, food and beverage services, event planning, theme parks, travel agency, tourism, hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, and bars. Sector ...

. It can refer to a meal, or a customer for whom the meal is served. It is used for the purpose of business forecasting.

Definition

A cover means one customer paying for one meal.Eat App https://restaurant.eatapp.co/blog/the-a-to-z-guide-to-restaurant-lingo For example, a table for four diners can provide 4 covers, but if the table is used for two sittings, that becomes 8 covers.

Derived statistics

*Cover per Occupied Room (CPOR) is one statistic which can be used in forecasting. *This is the average spent per individual customer, which can be calculated separately for each member of the serving staff. *Polansky and McCool propose a capture ratio, given by the ratio of "Meal Period Covers Served" divided by the "Number of Persons Available to Eat that Meal". *This is another statistic which can be used to calculate the allocation of staff, based on the number of predicted covers required.

References

{{reflist Hospitality management