Slow Replies, Lost Revenue

The silent leak in your direct revenue

Most hotels know that OTAs are expensive, but the real leak often starts much earlier – in the inbox. Guests send a simple booking question, wait a few hours, and then book on an OTA that feels faster and more reliable.

Industry data shows just how high the stakes are. Booking.com Partner Solutions found that hotels responding to booking inquiries within 60 minutes achieve 62% higher conversion rates than those replying after 24+ hours (via Cordiant summary). Kalibri Labs reports that direct email inquiries answered within two hours convert 37% better and at 24% higher ADR than slower responses.

At the same time, OTAs still control the majority of online demand. Recent market analysis suggests OTAs account for around 55% of online hotel bookings, while direct channels (brand website, GDS) capture the rest. Those OTA bookings typically come with 15–25% commission costs (Prostay, Cloudbeds, Thrivin Digital).

When you combine slow responses with expensive third-party channels, you get a hidden tax on your P&L: not only do you lose potential direct bookings, you also end up paying commission on guests who would happily have booked with you directly if you had replied faster.

Direct vs OTA: what slow replies really cost

It is easy to underestimate the financial impact of channel mix. Thrivin Digital’s cost analysis for luxury hotels highlights that OTA bookings often carry 15–30% commission, while well-run direct channels can operate at around 4–5% cost of sale (marketing, payment fees, tech). They estimate direct bookings to be roughly 9% more profitable than OTA bookings for a typical $500 stay – even before counting extra on-property spend.

Higher cancellation rates make the picture worse. According to the same analysis, OTA bookings can see cancellation rates around 50%, compared with roughly 18% for direct bookings. That means more uncertainty, more manual work and more last-minute gaps in your occupancy.

Now combine this with email response behaviour. Studies referenced by Cordiant show that 41% of hotel guest emails wait more than 24 hours for a reply, and 22% of pre-stay booking inquiries never receive a response at all. The American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) estimates that each unanswered booking email represents about $57 in potential revenue left on the table.

Scale this across a year and the numbers become uncomfortable. A hotel that misses or delays just 10 booking-related emails per day could be leaking over $200,000 in annual revenue – before even considering the lifetime value of those guests or their referrals.

• OTA commission: typically 15–25%, sometimes up to 30% (Cloudbeds, Thrivin Digital).
• Direct channel cost: often around 4–5% when marketing and tech are optimized (Thrivin Digital).
• Cancellation rate: ~50% on OTAs vs ~18% for direct bookings (Thrivin Digital).
• Email behaviour: 41% of guest emails answered after 24 hours, 22% never answered (Medallia/HSMAI via Cordiant).

Why response time is now a primary competitive battleground

Guests today are used to instant messaging, same-day deliveries and 24/7 availability. In that context, waiting 12–24 hours for an email reply from a hotel feels outdated – especially when an OTA can confirm the same stay in seconds.

Travel benchmarks from Zeal Connect highlight just how much response times matter: they report that hotel booking conversion rates are 62% higher when replies arrive within the first hour, and that the best performing travel agencies keep email response times in the 1–4 hour range, compared with an industry average of around 36 hours.

The impact goes beyond a single booking. Research cited by Cordiant and J.D. Power suggests that hotels responding to guest emails within 30 minutes score significantly higher on guest satisfaction – up to 48 points higher on a 1,000-point scale – and see better online ratings and repeat business.

In other words: speed is not just a service nice-to-have. It is a revenue lever, a reputation driver and a direct booking moat. If your hotel consistently responds faster and more precisely than the competition, guests learn that it is safer and easier to book with you directly than via an anonymous platform.

How AI email assistants change the economics (without replacing your team)

The operational problem is obvious: reception and reservations teams are already stretched. They juggle check-ins, phone calls, in-person guests and back-office tasks – and the inbox becomes the pressure valve that keeps being postponed.

This is exactly where AI email assistants shine. Rather than replacing your staff, they do the groundwork: reading the email, pulling reservation or PMS data, applying your policies and tone of voice, and drafting a complete, on-brand response in seconds. Your team then reviews, tweaks if necessary, and sends.

In practice, this means moving from 8–10 minutes of manual work per email to 1–3 minutes of review. For a 40-room hotel with 30 guest emails per day, that can free up several hours of staff time daily – while simultaneously shrinking response times from many hours to under an hour.

Cordiant’s analysis of hotels using AI-assisted email workflows suggests that it is realistic to reply to 98% of guest emails within 30 seconds at the draft level. Even if your internal review process adds a buffer, it becomes manageable to keep response times comfortably inside the one-hour window that maximizes conversion.

• AI drafts, humans approve: staff keep control over tone and decisions.
• Faster than building manual templates for every scenario.
• Works 24/7, so late-night inquiries receive a helpful draft immediately.
• Consistent policy application reduces risk and exceptions.

A 30-day playbook to increase direct bookings via email

You do not have to redesign your entire tech stack to benefit from faster, smarter email handling. Many hotels see meaningful impact within 30 days by focusing on a few practical steps.

• Week 1 – Baseline and quick wins: Measure current email response times and direct vs OTA booking mix. Set a simple service standard (e.g. 90% of booking emails answered within 2 hours). Create a small library of approved responses for your top 10 inquiry types.
• Week 2 – Introduce AI drafting in ‘draft-only’ mode: Connect an AI email assistant that can read your PMS data and policies. Keep humans fully in the loop – every email is still reviewed before sending.
• Week 3 – Extend hours and channels: Use AI drafting to cover evenings and weekends, when response times typically slip and OTAs look most attractive to guests.
• Week 4 – Optimize for direct bookings: Adjust templates to always include a clear, trackable direct booking path (link to your engine, payment link, or pro-forma offer) and highlight benefits of booking direct (flexible terms, upgrades, loyalty points). Track uplift in direct bookings from email over time.

What to measure (and what to ignore)

It is tempting to get lost in vanity metrics like open rates or general email volume. For direct booking impact, a few focused KPIs matter much more:

• Median response time for booking-related emails (goal: under 60 minutes).
• Share of inquiries that receive a response before the guest’s stated decision deadline.
• Conversion rate from booking inquiries to confirmed stays – split by direct vs OTA.
• Average commission cost per booking (including OTA and payment fees).
• Lifetime value of guests acquired through direct email vs OTAs.