Okuzeka
Tourism & Hospitality vocabulary · Reservations & Rates

Overbooking

Meaning in tourism & hospitality, with examples

/ˌoʊvərˈbʊkɪŋ/nounCommon term

In tourism & hospitality, overbooking means: Accepting more reservations than there are rooms or seats, expecting that some guests will cancel or not arrive.

In Turkish: overbooking, kapasite üstü rezervasyon, fazla rezervasyon

How it is used

A common practice in hotels and airlines to avoid empty rooms and seats. If everyone arrives, the hotel must walk a guest: move them to another hotel of a similar standard, usually at its own cost. The verb is overbook.

Example sentences

  1. Because of overbooking, we have to move three guests to our sister hotel tonight.

  2. Overbooking is risky in high season because very few guests cancel.

Common collocations

  • overbooking policy
  • be overbooked
  • walk a guest
  • overbooking situation
  • no-showA guest who has a reservation but neither arrives nor cancels; the word also describes the booking itself.
  • fully bookedHaving no free rooms, tables or places left for a particular date because everything has already been reserved.
  • availabilityWhether rooms, tables, seats or places on a tour are free to be booked on a particular date.
  • occupancy rateThe percentage of a hotel's available rooms that are sold over a certain period, such as a night, a month or a season.

More terms: Reservations & Rates

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: