Why do short-staffed hotels lose so many bookings?
Because a leaner front desk cannot catch every call. The phone rings during breakfast and check-in and just rings out, and after-hours enquiries drop to voicemail. And the guest does not wait for a callback. They book on one of the big booking sites instead, so you fill the room but hand over a commission you did not need to.
This is harder in 2026 for a simple reason: there are fewer people. Since the last Budget, hospitality has been the hardest hit part of the whole economy for jobs.
Source: UKHospitality, 2026.
What is the best way to answer the phone when the desk is busy?
There are three common options. Here is how they compare for a mid-sized hotel group.
| Option | Answers 24/7 | Sounds like your hotel | Books from live availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| Do it yourself, at the desk | No, only when someone is free | Yes | Yes, when someone can |
| A traditional answering service | Often limited hours | Reads a generic script | No, just takes a message |
| An always-on agent (Sorino) | Yes, day and night | Yes, in your own voice | Yes, and hands hard cases to the desk |
The difference that matters: a message service takes a note and leaves you to call back, by which point the guest has often booked elsewhere. An agent answers and confirms the booking in the moment, which is what keeps it direct.
Will an AI agent get a rate or a booking wrong?
Not if it is set up properly. It answers from your own record of rooms, rates and policies, never a guess, and hands anything it should not answer straight to the desk. Anything complicated is passed across with the full conversation attached, and every call and message is logged and readable, so nothing happens out of sight. The point is coverage for the hours your people cannot pick up, with a person always in charge of the hard calls.
Does it replace my front desk?
No. It works alongside them. Think of it as someone on the desk who never clocks off, catching the calls and messages your team cannot get to during check-in and after hours, and handing anything real over to a person. Your front desk still runs the lobby and looks after the guests in it.
How much does it cost compared with hiring someone?
Every hour of staff time now costs more than it did. From April 2026 the wage floor for staff aged 21 and over is £12.71 an hour, and on top of pay employers pay National Insurance at 15%, so the real cost of an hour worked is well above the headline wage. Hiring a person just to answer the phone is hard to justify. An always-on agent covers every channel for a flat monthly cost, with no extra person to recruit or train.
How quickly can it go live?
Live in two to six weeks. You build your hotel's agent on the site and ask it the awkward questions yourself. Then you load your rooms, rates and policies and set the escalation rules, take voice and chat live and tune them to how your hotel actually talks, and add email and social with reporting turned on, so you can see calls answered, enquiries converted and bookings kept direct.
This is the hotels edition. There is a wider report covering hotels, restaurants and bars together.
Read the full hospitality reportThe short version
- A leaner front desk plus more enquiries at peak means rooms leak to the big booking sites.
- An always-on agent answers the phone, chat, WhatsApp and email in your hotel's voice, around the clock.
- It books from live availability, answers from your own record, and hands hard cases to the desk.
- It works alongside your team, not instead of them, for a flat monthly cost.
- It goes live in two to six weeks and is answering in hotels now.
Sources
We do not publish a figure unless it is real and attributable. The numbers on this page are:
- Hospitality is the hardest hit sector for jobs since the last Budget, nearly half (45%) of all UK job losses. UKHospitality, 2026. ukhospitality.org.uk
- National Living Wage (21 and over) is £12.71 an hour from April 2026. GOV.UK, 2026. gov.uk/national-minimum-wage-rates
- Employer National Insurance is charged at 15%. GOV.UK, 2026. gov.uk/national-insurance-rates-letters