High season reality: when your best service creates your biggest blind spot
Every hotelier knows the pattern:
- Arrival and departure days
- Early evening before dinner
- Winter holidays, summer peak, or major events
Those are exactly the times when your front desk is at maximum capacity and precisely when demand is highest.
The front office team is:
- Checking in families who’ve been traveling all day
- Handling special requests (“Can we add an extra bed?”)
- Answering questions about ski passes or spa times
- Dealing with payment issues or last-minute changes
In that chaos, what happens to the phone?
Often:
- It rings too long
- It goes to voicemail
- It’s picked up in a rush, with limited time to actually convert
Research across service businesses shows that nearly 62% of calls to small businesses go unanswered, and around 85% of those callers don’t leave a voicemail and simply move on to the next option.
In other words: if your hotel doesn’t answer, there’s a good chance that potential guest is already calling another property and booking there instead. Studies in other service industries show that when calls go unanswered, a majority of people immediately try a competitor.
Now add one more factor:
Around 80% of all business communication still happens over the phone.
So even in a digital world, the telephone is still one of your most powerful booking tools and one of the easiest places to lose revenue without noticing.
Why phone calls still matter so much for hotels
It’s tempting to believe that everything has moved to online booking engines and OTAs. But that’s only part of the story.
In hospitality:
- A significant portion of business is still generated through phone calls, especially for complex or higher-value stays.
- Data from hotel call campaigns shows that bookings made over the phone can be up to 3x the value of online bookings, thanks to upselling and tailored offers.
- Online booking abandonment in hospitality can reach up to 85% of visitors not completing their reservation, many of them looking for reassurance or human contact before they commit.
At the same time, travellers increasingly research on OTAs but prefer to finalize directly with the provider when they trust the experience and value.
That means the phone is often the final decision point:
- “Can you confirm the room layout for our kids?”
- “Do you have connecting rooms?”
- “Is late checkout possible?”
- “Can you match the price I saw online?”
If that call doesn’t get answered quickly and professionally, the booking often disappears.
The winter high season problem: too many priorities, not enough hands
Winter high season, summer peak, trade fairs, Christmas markets whatever your “high season” looks like, the pattern is the same:
- Call volume spikes when your property is already stretched.
- Your most experienced staff are busy handling guests in person.
- Newer staff may not yet be confident enough to handle complex calls or upsell.
- Calls get missed, rushed, or handled by someone who doesn’t have real-time information.
No hotelier chooses to ignore the phone. It happens because you’re doing what you should:
prioritising guests who are standing right in front of you.
The challenge is that the phone doesn’t care how busy you are. It just rings and every ring is:
- Potential revenue
- A direct booking instead of an OTA commission
- The start of a longer-term guest relationship
So the question becomes:
How do you protect your front desk team’s time and make sure every call is answered, every time?
Meet Seekda Stay: your AI voice assistant & digital concierge, powered by Sadie
Seekda Stay is designed precisely for this moment.
It’s an AI voice assistant and digital concierge built for hotels, integrated into the Seekda ecosystem and powered by Sadie, the market-leading AI host for hospitality.
What does that mean in practice?
- 24/7 call handling
Seekda Stay answers guest calls around the clock, during high season peaks, lunch breaks, nights, and off-season too. - Natural, human-like conversations
Sadie’s voice AI is built for hospitality, designed to sound friendly, confident, and helpful, like your best front desk agent on their best day. - Real-time availability & booking
Seekda Stay doesn’t just answer questions; it connects to your booking engine and systems so it can check live availability and confirm direct bookings on the spot. - Multilingual service
Powered by Sadie, Seekda Stay can handle conversations in multiple languages, ensuring international guests feel understood and supported. - Digital concierge capabilities
It acts as a virtual concierge, answering common questions about check-in times, parking, directions, ski passes, local recommendations, and more, freeing your team to focus on in-house guests. - Built for hotels, not generic call bots
Seekda Stay is embedded in the Seekda Foundation, an all-in-one hospitality platform, so calls, bookings, and operational data live in one place instead of scattered across tools.
Most importantly:
Seekda Stay is there to support your front desk team, not replace them.
It takes over the repetitive, time-sensitive part of the work (picking up every call quickly, answering FAQs, capturing bookings) so your people can concentrate on what humans do best: empathy, problem-solving, and creating memorable experiences.
From missed calls to measurable impact: what hotels are already seeing
This is not theory. Hotels using Seekda Stay are already seeing concrete results.
In one Seekda case study:
- The hotel used Seekda Stay to handle 100% of guest calls, even during off-hours and peak periods.
- The AI voice assistant answered inquiries, checked live availability, and confirmed bookings directly into the Seekda IBE.
- Within just three months, the hotel reduced lost reservations by 28%.
Now combine that with what we know from broader research:
- Up to 62% of calls to small businesses go unanswered, and most callers do not leave a voicemail.
- Phone bookings bring significantly higher order values in hospitality compared to pure online bookings.
It becomes clear:
Every missed call during high season isn’t just an inconvenience. It’s real revenue lost and often, a higher-value direct booking.
What this looks like in your winter high season
Picture a typical day in January:
Scenario 1: Saturday arrival rush
- Check-ins are backed up.
- The lobby is full of ski gear and excited kids.
- The phone is ringing continuously.
With Seekda Stay:
- Every call is answered on the first rings: no guest is left listening to endless ringing or voicemail.
- A potential guest asks: “Do you have two double rooms for next weekend?”
- Seekda Stay checks live availability, confirms the best option, and books the stay directly: no OTA commission.
- Your front desk team never had to interrupt their check-in flow.
Scenario 2: Evening “information calls” that usually clog the line
- “What time is breakfast?”
- “Do you have parking?”
- “Do you offer ski storage?”
Seekda Stay handles these instantly with accurate, hotel-specific answers, trained on your policies and content.
Your team gets fewer interruptions, while guests get fast, consistent information.
Scenario 3: After-hours & off-season
Even outside winter:
- During low season when you reduce staffing
- Overnight when the front desk isn’t fully staffed
- On holidays when call volume is unpredictable
Seekda Stay ensures your phone is never “closed”, so spontaneous planners, last-minute bookers, or international guests in different time zones can still book with you directly.
“Are we replacing our front desk team?” – No. Here’s why that matters.
A concern many hoteliers share is:
“If we bring in AI, what does that mean for our team?”
Seekda Stay is built with the opposite goal in mind.
Because it’s powered by Sadie and designed specifically for hospitality, the focus is on enhancing guest experience and supporting staff, not cutting them.
Here’s how it helps your people:
- Less pressure at peak times
The AI handles the flood of incoming calls, so your staff can remain calm and fully present with in-house guests. - Fewer repetitive questions
FAQs, standard information, and simple booking scenarios are taken care of, freeing staff to handle complex, high-touch situations. - More meaningful interactions
When guests reach a human, it’s more often for situations where empathy and creativity really matter. - Better work-life balance
With 24/7 AI coverage, you don’t need to rely as heavily on overtime, on-call shifts, or burning out your core team during high season.
In short: Seekda Stay gives your front desk their time and focus back, while protecting your revenue and guest experience.
The business case: what “never missing a call” really means
Let’s make it tangible.
Imagine:
- Your hotel receives 50 reservation-related calls per day in winter high season.
- Like many service businesses, you’re unintentionally missing around 40–60% of them at peak times.
- Let’s be conservative and say 10 of those missed calls each day would have converted into bookings.
- If each of those bookings represents €300 in revenue (often more in ski season), that’s €3,000 in potential revenue per day.
Over a 90-day high season, that’s up to €270,000 in potential revenue at risk, not even counting:
- The higher average order value of phone bookings
- Future repeat stays and word-of-mouth
- Savings on OTA commissions
Seekda Stay doesn’t magically convert every call into a booking, but its job is clear:
Answer every call, every time, and maximize the chance that a call becomes a direct booking, not a competitor’s win.
The real-world case study showing a 28% reduction in lost reservations in just three months is a strong indication of what this can mean for your own P&L.
Why this matters beyond winter and beyond the phone
Although winter high season is the perfect moment to feel the pain of missed calls, this challenge is not seasonal.
- Summer holiday periods
- Conference and event weeks
- City festivals or local events
- Unexpected spikes in demand
Seekda Stay gives you a permanent safety net for guest communication, no matter when demand surges.
And because Seekda is moving towards omnichannel, AI-powered booking journeys across web, chat, and phone, Seekda Stay is part of a broader strategy: making sure that when guests switch channels, your systems keep up and your revenue doesn’t fall through the cracks.
How to get started with Seekda Stay
If you’re reading this and thinking, “This is exactly what we need for next season,” here’s how most hotels start:
- Map your high-season pain points
- When do most calls go unanswered?
- Which questions keep coming back?
- Where does your team feel overwhelmed?
- Talk to Seekda about your current setup
Seekda Stay is designed to work within the Seekda ecosystem and with existing tools, so you can start capturing value without a painful system migration. - Configure your AI concierge
With Sadie behind the scenes, Seekda Stay can be customized to reflect your hotel’s:- Brand tone of voice
- Policies and procedures
- Room types, packages, and add-ons
- Launch before your next peak period
Many hotels choose to go live ahead of winter or summer high season to feel the impact where it matters most: when the phones are busiest and the stakes are highest.
The bottom line: don’t let your busiest days be your most expensive ones
Winter high season should be when your hotel earns the most, not when it loses the most to missed calls and OTA commissions.
With Seekda Stay:
- Every caller gets an immediate, friendly response
- Every booking opportunity is captured: day or night
- Your front desk team is supported, not replaced
- Your guests experience consistent, high-quality service across channels
If you want your next high season to be more profitable, less stressful, and more guest-centric, it’s time to look seriously at how your hotel handles the most underrated channel of all:
The humble phone call which, with Seekda Stay, becomes one of your most powerful revenue engines.
Ready to explore what Seekda Stay could do for your property?
Share this article with your team, gather your high-season numbers, and reach out to Seekda to see how an AI voice assistant built for hospitality can help you turn missed calls into measurable revenue this winter and beyond.
Seekda Stay is a digital AI voice assistant and concierge for hotels, powered by Sadie. It answers incoming calls, handles guest questions, and can convert phone inquiries into direct bookings – 24/7. It’s designed specifically for hotel operations and integrates with existing Seekda solutions.
During winter high season or any other busy period, front desk teams are often overwhelmed with check-ins, check-outs, and in-person requests. This is when calls are most likely to go unanswered. Seekda Stay picks up every call, responds immediately, and guides the caller through questions and booking options. This way, you reduce missed calls, protect revenue, and support your team when they need it most.
No. Seekda Stay does not replace your front desk team; it supports them. The AI assistant takes care of repetitive, time-critical tasks such as answering standard questions and handling simple bookings. Your staff can then focus on personal guest interactions, problem-solving, upselling, and creating memorable experiences at the property.
Yes. Seekda Stay is designed to answer calls instantly, check real-time availability, and guide callers through the booking process. Instead of losing potential guests who hang up or call a competitor when nobody answers, Seekda Stay captures that demand and turns it into direct bookings – without relying on OTAs.
In peak periods, many hotels miss a large percentage of incoming calls because staff are busy with on-site guests. These unanswered calls often represent real sales opportunities: guests asking about availability, prices, room types, or special requests. When the phone is not answered, many of these callers simply move on to another hotel or back to an OTA, leading to lost revenue and higher commission costs.
Seekda Stay is useful all year round. While winter high season clearly shows the pain of missed calls, similar challenges appear in summer, during trade fairs, festivals, or local events. Whenever your call volume spikes or staffing is reduced, Seekda Stay ensures that every call is answered and every booking opportunity is handled.
Seekda Stay can answer a wide range of hotel-related questions, including:
– Availability, prices, and room types
– Check-in and check-out times
– Parking, breakfast, spa, ski storage, and other facilities
– Policies (pets, cancellation, children, etc.)
– General information about the hotel and surroundings
It can also guide callers towards booking the right room or offer.
Seekda Stay is designed to work within the Seekda environment and connect with your booking engine and hotel data. That allows it to check real-time availability, present suitable options, and complete direct bookings. This integration ensures that information is consistent and you don’t have to manually transfer data from one system to another.
Yes. Powered by Sadie, Seekda Stay can handle conversations in multiple languages, helping international guests feel welcome and understood. This is particularly valuable for destinations that attract guests from different countries throughout the year.
Seekda Stay improves guest experience in several ways:
– Guests get instant answers instead of long waiting times or voicemails.
– Information is accurate and consistent, regardless of who is on shift.
– Calls are handled professionally even during busy check-in times or outside reception hours.
– Your staff can dedicate more time and energy to guests on property, leading to a more relaxed, attentive service culture.
Implementation time depends on your current setup, but the process is straightforward. Typically, you define your key information, policies, and tone of voice, connect Seekda Stay to your booking and hotel data, and test it with a set of common scenarios. Most hotels choose to go live before their next peak period to feel the impact exactly when the phones are busiest.
Seekda Stay brings value to both small and large properties. Smaller hotels benefit from having “extra hands” on the phone without increasing headcount, while larger hotels use it to handle high call volumes and standard questions more efficiently. In both cases, the goal is to reduce missed calls and secure more direct bookings.
By answering more calls and converting these calls into direct bookings, Seekda Stay helps shift reservations from OTA channels to your own direct channel. This means fewer commission costs and higher profitability per booking. Over an entire high season, this can have a noticeable impact on your bottom line.
Unlike generic bots or simple menu systems, Seekda Stay is built specifically for hotels and powered by Sadie, an AI host optimized for hospitality. It understands typical hotel questions, speaks naturally, can access real-time availability, and can complete bookings. That makes the conversation smoother and more helpful for guests than traditional “press 1, press 2” phone menus.
To learn more, you can contact the Seekda team directly, request a demo, or ask for case studies and success stories from other hotels. Seeing Seekda Stay live in a real call scenario is the best way to understand how it can support your front desk, reduce missed calls, and increase direct bookings in your own property.
