Jenna is ready to go travel, and she pulls up the site to get things booked. The dates work, the room looks right, and the flight is even within her budget. However, other questions start popping up: Does this fare include a checked bag? Will she be able to change the dates later if needed? Why hasn’t a previous cancellation gone through yet?
Jenna reaches out to support, and she waits.
This waiting period may look like a customer support issue, but in travel and hospitality, it can quickly become a revenue issue.
Travel purchases are usually time-sensitive, with factors such as availability and prices quickly changing. Competitors are also only a click away, and unlike many retail purchases, a booking can involve multiple people, fixed dates, cancellation rules, and significant financial commitment.
This is what makes customer support response time so important. At critical moments, it can influence whether someone completes a booking, reschedules after a disruption, or decides to take their business elsewhere.
The moment travel brands lose guests (It’s not pricing)
Often, pricing gets the attention when travel bookings are abandoned. However, travelers also walk away because the booking process becomes too difficult or uncertain.
Recent research from FullStory’s 2026 Travel & Hospitality Survey found that 37% of a group of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers identified delayed or unhelpful customer service as a reason for abandoning travel plans. Additionally, nearly 70% said they would be likely to switch travel brands following a negative experience.
This is especially important because travel comes with plenty of built-in friction. Someone might be coordinating flights with hotel dates, checking baggage restrictions, comparing cancellation policies, or trying to figure out if a disrupted itinerary can be changed without a penalty. Every question adds more uncertainty.
Adding a support waiting time on top of that? The result is what we can call the booking abandonment curve: as uncertainty and waiting times increase, the likelihood of completing the intended booking declines.
This isn’t necessarily a hard and fast rule. Some travelers will wait, call again, or simply return later, but travel brands should recognize that a support interaction might occur at the exact moment a customer is deciding whether or not to go through with the booking.
What the data shows about booking and refund delays
It is important to note that there is no single industry-wide number that can tell a travel brand exactly how many bookings it loses because a support response took too long. Abandonment has multiple causes, and response time is only one variable.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of these variables.
For broader digital commerce, cart abandonment can be driven by a mix of factors, including unexpected costs, slow delivery, trust concerns, complicated checkout processes, and website errors. Travel has many of these same pain points, but with additional complexity.
Customer service adds yet another layer.
Provoke Insights’ 2026 research on travel brand loyalty found that among recent airline purchases, 27% said a bad personal experience could cause them to abandon a brand, while 18% cited poor customer service. Among recent hotel guests, 25% cited a bad personal experience, and 18% again cited poor customer service.
These figures don’t directly tie in with slow response times causing these percentages, but they do, however, reinforce a broader point: customer service is a key part of the travel product.
A booking confirmation doesn’t indicate the end of the customer journey, nor does the payment. If a traveler needs help changing a reservation, correcting a booking error, or securing a refund, the quality and speed of these interactions become part of their perception of the brand.
Why travel support has a higher cost of slowness than other industries
Travel is unusually vulnerable to the cost of delay because decisions are often time-bound. A customer shopping for a sweater can leave a website, compare to another retailer, and return next week to finish the purchase. A traveler trying to book the last suitable flight for a Friday afternoon may not have that luxury.
Time-sensitive decisions
Seats disappear, rooms sell out, and rates can change. A customer waiting for clarification may be watching the alternative disappear in real time. That means that a slow support interaction can have an indirect revenue impact, even when the agent eventually does provide the correct answer.
Competing platforms
Travelers rarely only have one option. If an airline’s support queue is difficult to navigate, a traveler may compare it to another carrier. If an agent can’t resolve a reservation issue, another platform could be just a browser tab away.
This competitive environment makes guest trust all the more important. Customers need confidence the company will still be responsive when something goes wrong, not just when everything is going smoothly.
Even when processing times on refunds are dictated by payment networks, banks, or internal finance workflows, silence can create the impression that nothing is happening. Clear communication can combat this.
Customers are more likely to tolerate a necessary processing period when they know what has happened, what happens next, and when they should expect resolution. The alternative is repeated contacts, escalating frustrations, and ultimately, loyalty erosion.
What faster, better-resourced support looks like
To improve response time, travel and hospitality leaders need to look at the entire support operation.
Start with identifying key moments of friction: pre-booking questions, payment problems, booking issues, urgent modifications, cancellations, disruption-related requests, and refund inquiries.
From there, teams can build different service levels based on urgency and revenue impact. Useful metrics could be:
- First response time by channel and issue type
- Time to resolution for booking modifications
- Abandonment during support interactions
- Repeat contacts for the same issue
- Refund and cancellation turnaround
- Escalation rates during disruptions
- Customer satisfaction after service recovery
- Booking conversion following a support interaction
Additionally, peak travel demand can create a dangerous feedback loop, where more travelers need help, queues grow, response time increases, customers make repeat contacts, and the added volume makes those queues even longer.
It is important to take this into account before the demand spikes happen, so your team can be ready for it.
Related reading: Retail Peak Season Customer Support Readiness: A Complete Prep Guide
Closing thoughts
It is unrealistic to believe that travel brands can eliminate every disruption. Inevitably, flights will be delayed, booking systems will experience issues, or customers will need to change plans.
The part that makes all the difference is what happens next. How do you handle these disruptions?
While fast response doesn’t guarantee a secured booking, slow, unclear support can easily snowball into a much larger failure. The goal is to figure out a way to answer customers quickly in a manner that actually moves them forward in their journey.
About the author: The Office Gurus helps businesses build customer support operations designed around responsive, human-led service. Learn more about their approach through GuruAssist.
