The fastest reply isn't the one that wins the booking

Most hotels measure their inbox on one number: how fast they reply. It's easy to count, and it feels like good service.

We thought the same. When we started working with reservations teams, speed looked like the obvious problem. Too many emails, too few people, guests waiting too long for answers.

Then we looked at 2 million hotel emails at 48 hotels and asked a different question. Not "how fast did the hotel reply?" but "what happened to the guest after the hotel pressed send?" The answer changed how I think about the inbox.

Fast is not the same as helpful

Guests who got a reply within 15 minutes booked 37% of the time. Guests who got a reply within 15 to 60 minutes booked 46% of the time. Within 1 to 4 hours, 42%. After that, the rate settled at 36% to 37%, whether the reply took four hours or three days.

Speed matters, and every guest deserves a quick reply. But when speed becomes the only goal, the reply becomes about clearing the inbox, not about helping the guest make a decision.

An answer the guest can say yes to

Think of a couple planning a weekend away. One of them emails the hotel from work and takes the answer home. If it says there's a room, recommends one, answers their questions and offers to book it, they can just say yes. If it's a list of room types and rates, they have homework.

Those four things are what we saw in the replies that turned into bookings. When an answer had all four, 58% of guests booked. When it had none, only 4% booked. Only about 1 in 8 answers had all four.

The guest goes quiet, and so does the hotel

34% of guests didn't reply after getting an offer. That's normal. People get busy, compare options, forget.

What surprised us is what happened next. Only 2% of those quiet guests got a follow-up. Across the hotels we studied, these unanswered offers represented an estimated €3.7 million in potential booking value.

We don't know how many of those a follow-up would win back. Almost no hotel has tried. We don't even know yet what a good follow-up should say, because there are too few to study. But we do know when to try: half of the guests who reply do so within three days, and 8 in 10 within a week. Days 3 to 7 are the window.

This isn't about teams doing a bad job

The person answering emails is often also checking in guests and answering the phone. Teams are trying to clear a full inbox every day, so there's no time to go back to the guest who got an offer four days ago. And they're measured on what managers can see, which is response time. For most hotels the inbox is a black box.

Two things to change

First, answer so the guest can say yes: say if there's a room, recommend one, answer every question, and ask for the booking. Second, follow up between day 3 and day 7.

And measure the journey, not only the message. In our study, booking rates between hotels ranged from 19% to 55%. The demand is already in your inbox.

The full report, Inside the Hotel Inbox 2026, covers leisure and business stays and is free to read at altek.ai/inside-the-hotel-inbox.