Weighted Average Daily Rate is an average room rate that accounts for how many rooms sold at each rate, rather than treating every rate as equally important. It's the difference between the rate a property offered and the rate it achieved.
WADR = Sum of (rooms sold at each rate x that rate) / Total rooms sold
A simple average of rates misleads whenever volume is uneven. Take a property that sold 1,800 room-nights of leisure business at $165.00 and 1,080 room-nights of corporate business at $125.00. Averaging the two rates gives $145.00. Weighting them by the volume that actually sold gives $150.00, because the higher-rate segment moved more rooms.
That weighted figure is the property's real ADR, which is why ADR calculated from a total revenue figure is already weighted by definition. WADR is the term used when the same number is built up from segments or rate plans instead of down from a revenue total, which is how forecasts and budgets are usually assembled.
The distinction matters most when a forecast is being challenged. A budget built on a list of rate plans and an optimistic mix can promise an ADR the property has never achieved, and weighting the mix honestly is what exposes that.