Lead time (booking window)
The number of days between when a guest books and when they arrive — the thing that decides how much time your pricing has left to work.
Lead time is the clock on every pricing decision. A market where guests typically book 90 days out gives you a long runway to hold a rate and wait for the right booking. A market that books 10 days out does not, and the same 'hold firm' strategy in that market is just an empty calendar arriving slowly.
Lead time varies enormously by segment inside a single property. Holiday weeks and large family groups book far in advance. Business travel and last-minute getaways book inside two weeks. A single average across both is a number that describes neither.
Because lead time sets the runway, it should set how aggressively rates move. Far from arrival, small adjustments and patience. Close to arrival, the value of an unsold night is falling to zero and the calculus changes completely.
That last point is worth stating bluntly, because it is where most money is left behind. An unsold night is perishable in a way almost nothing else in a small business is: at midnight on the date itself, its value is exactly zero and cannot be recovered later. A discount that feels painful ten days out is often still the better of the two available outcomes, and the same discount taken sixty days out was probably unnecessary.
Where it goes wrong
Applying one market's booking window to another. Lead time is one of the most location-specific numbers in the business, and importing an assumption from a different market is how operators end up permanently early or permanently late on price.
Related terms
- Booking pace — How fast a future date is filling compared with how fast it normally fills by the same point — the earliest honest signal that a rate is wrong.
- Dynamic pricing — Setting each night's rate from current demand rather than a fixed calendar — the discipline, not any particular tool.
- Orphan night — A gap between two bookings that is shorter than your minimum stay, so nobody can book it at any price.