Coping with no-shows, late cancellations and oversales: American hotels out-do the airlines

Abstract The article describes the related problems of no-shows, late cancellations, overbooking and oversales that plague both the hotel and airline industries. It then examines how American hotels and airlines have coped with the problems of no-shows/late cancellations, engaged in protective overbooking to minimise oversales and undersales, dealt with bumps and walks with upgrades and compensation plans and what they have done to monitor their reservation profiles. The author, an airline economist, has come to the unmistakable conclusion that the hotels have done a much better job than the airlines of managing the problem of no-shows, late cancellations and oversales.