Cover (hospitality)

A cover means one customer paying for one meal. For example, a table for four diners can provide 4 covers, but if the table is used for two sittings, that becomes 8 covers.^{[citation needed]}

• Cover per Occupied Room (CPOR) is one statistic which can be used in forecasting. ^[2]
• This is the average spent per individual customer, which can be calculated separately for each member of the serving staff.^[3]
• 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".^[2]
• This is another statistic which can be used to calculate the allocation of staff, based on the number of predicted covers required.^[2]