Generate £8.5k per site, per year with abandoned bookings
What are abandoned bookings?
In the restaurant and hospitality industry, an abandoned booking refers to a scenario where a guest begins the process of making a reservation, perhaps selecting a date, time, or even entering contact details, but doesn’t complete the final confirmation.
Just like abandoned carts in eCommerce, these partial bookings indicate clear intent to dine or stay, but for one reason or another, the guest drops off before finishing the process. Whether due to distractions, indecision, or technical friction, these incomplete reservations represent lost revenue but also a clear opportunity.
Performance metrics & industry benchmarks
To assess the impact of abandoned bookings, hospitality brands should monitor key metrics such as:
- Conversion rate: The percentage of total web sessions that end in a completed booking. This changes by sub-sector (casual dining is very different to late night) but typically sits between 5% and 10%.
- Abandonment rate: The percentage of users who start the booking process but don’t go on to complete it. Again, this can differ by sub-sector but can be as high as 80%.
- Recovery rate: The percentage of abandoned bookings that are recovered via follow-up campaigns. This averages between 2% and 5%.
Tracking these can help restaurants benchmark their performance and optimize conversion funnels over time.
“The power of abandoned booking emails has really surprised me. In just 12 weeks, across 4 venues, we have driven an additional £7.6k into the business. When stretched out over the year, that’s somewhere around £8.5k extra per site – all from just setting up one follow up campaign. We are now looking at new ways in which we can convert more from these super high intent journeys”
James Mobbs, Fractional Marketing Director, East Coast Concepts.
Types of abandoned booking campaigns
There are several types of email campaigns that hospitality operators can implement to re-engage guests who abandon bookings.
- Opted-in Abandoned Booking Recovery:
A marketing branded timely nudge reminding guests to complete their reservation. This email can either include a generic link back to the booking widget, or a personalised link taking them back to exactly where they left, with the date, times, number of guests all pre-populated. 3% of guests who receive this email come back and book.
- No-marketing consent follow-up:
Even without marketing consent, under legitimate interest, a guest can receive a service email ****about their incomplete booking again with either a generic or personalised booking link. Interestingly, 4% of guests who receive this email come back and book.
- Reward reminder follow-up:
If the guest has a valid offer or reward, or you want to give them one to book at a different time, we add it to the email to increase urgency and conversion. 5*% of guests who receive this email come back and book.*
Powering over 9,000 abandoned bookings last quarter
On average, our abandoned booking campaigns are delivering 2 bookings per site, per week.
And maybe more surprisingly, they are driving conversions every single day of the week. So yes, whilst some bookings are abandoned due to lack of availability, Wednesday is actually the day that has driven the most bookings via abandoned booking emails in the last quarter.
Integrated with your existing tech stack
By using Guestwise we can identify ‘who’ is on your website, integrate into your existing CRM, whether that’s Airship, Acteol or anyone else, and power automatic email or SMS messages to bring guests back and complete their journey.
Why stop at abandoned bookings, the same can be done with abandoned gift card purchases, room bookings or online orders. The possibilities are endless.
Take advantage of abandoned bookings now
Head to our pricing page to find out more around the costs for using Guestwise to power your abandoned booking emails (in reality they pay for themselves!).
We can be live within a week of sign up and you can start taking advantage of money being left on the table immediately.
