There is a commercial blind spot in hospitality that rarely appears in reports or revenue forecasts. It sits outside standard operating hours and reveals itself only when demand and availability fail to align.
This is what we refer to as the Golden Hour.
The Golden Hour is not a fixed time of day. It is a window of high intent when guests decide whether to move forward. Evenings after work, late nights on social platforms, or weekends when planning finally happens. For wedding venues, this often means midweek evenings or weekends. For hotels and restaurants, it frequently occurs just before or during peak service.
The issue is structural rather than behavioural. These decision points coincide with moments when teams are busiest, front of house, mid-event or intentionally offline. Yet this is when enquiries arrive.
Where value is really being lost
Most hospitality businesses are not losing revenue because of poor service. In fact, once a guest arrives, the industry generally performs exceptionally well. The real losses happen earlier, before a booking is ever confirmed.
An enquiry comes in. A response is delayed. The guest moves on.
There is no cancellation, no declined quote and no visible failure. The opportunity simply disappears. Over time, these missed moments compound into a significant commercial impact that never appears on a profit and loss statement.
Miss a small number of genuine enquiries each month and the effect on annual performance becomes substantial. Yet because these losses are invisible, leadership teams often assume revenues are constrained by market conditions rather than internal availability gaps.
Speed and availability as decision drivers
Guest behaviour has changed. Loyalty still matters, but speed and availability increasingly determine outcomes. Guests message multiple venues at once and progress with the one that responds first, clearly and confidently.
Most operators already rely on online booking systems, and these remain essential for structured transactions. However, many guest journeys no longer start there.
Increasingly, discovery happens on social platforms and conversations begin within in-app messaging environments. Guests want reassurance, context or clarification before committing. Once a conversation starts, they expect it to continue within the same channel.
Traditional inbox-led workflows struggle to support this behaviour. Messages fragment across platforms, response times slow, and intent fades. In competitive markets, even short delays are often enough for decisions to be made elsewhere.
A systems problem, not a staffing issue
Missed enquiries are rarely the result of poor intent or lack of effort. Hospitality teams are expected to deliver live service while monitoring inboxes, social messages and enquiry forms across multiple platforms.
This expectation has become normalised, but it is not sustainable. People cannot operate like systems indefinitely. When services run late or platforms fragment communication, something inevitably gives.
The cost is not only lost revenue. It is fatigue, inconsistency and reduced quality of interaction. Over time, this erodes both staff wellbeing and guest experience.
This is not a people problem. It is a systems problem.
Separating availability from workload
Many operators recognise that something needs to change, but fear that fixing it requires major transformation projects, long timelines and significant investment. As a result, pressure is often pushed back onto existing teams to be faster or more available.
That approach does not scale.
The operators making progress are those that separate availability from human workload. They ensure guests can always engage without requiring teams to be everywhere at once or adding headcount. Incremental, well-applied change consistently outperforms sweeping transformation in an industry operating under tight margins.
This is not about replacing hospitality with technology. It is about protecting it. By reducing friction at the moment of decision, businesses capture revenue they are already working hard to generate, while allowing teams to focus on meaningful guest interactions.
In hospitality, it is rare to find an operational change that benefits customers, staff and the business at the same time. Addressing availability as a structural challenge makes that balance possible.
Northern universities are at heart of UK innovation – so let’s not lose their spinouts