Hotels ignore 92% of callers. Are you one of them?

How many direct bookings are lost because nobody answers the phone properly? A mystery shopper study that analysed 308 calls to 135 luxury hotels found that 92% of conversations did not end in capturing the guest's contact details. In other words, nearly all callers asking about availability or rates hang up without leaving an email or phone number. Without that data, following up, sending an offer, or converting that intent into a booking becomes impossible.

The research, covered by Hospitality Net, suggests the problem is not about technology but process. No matter how good your booking engine is, if the person answering the phone has no script or system pushing them to ask: "May I get your email to send you a personalised offer?", the call goes nowhere.

My take: hotels spend thousands on digital marketing to drive traffic, then give away the inbound call, which is the highest purchase intent you can get. That is where the opportunity lies. Train the team, use call tracking tools or AI that suggests responses in real time, and above all, measure how many calls end with captured data. Whoever cracks this, gains ground on the OTAs without spending an extra euro on ads.