Off-peak hours are periods of time when your hospitality business has fewer customers or foot traffic. These are outside of peak hours or busy times. For hotels, off-peak hours are late at night or early morning. For restaurants, it's between lunch and dinner. Bars and cafes might consider mid-afternoon as their off-peak time.
Knowing your off-peak hours helps you optimise your business. During these quiet times you can do deep cleaning, staff training or inventory management. You can also use off-peak hours to offer special promotions or discounts to attract more customers and boost revenue during slow periods. This will help balance out the workload for your staff and keep a steady flow of business all day.
Let’s say you run a busy city centre restaurant. You notice between 3-5pm your tables are empty. To make the most of these off-peak hours you decide to introduce an afternoon tea service. You create a special menu with sandwiches, scones and a selection of teas. You also offer a discount for bookings during this time. This new service brings in customers during a previously quiet period and allows your staff to transition smoothly between lunch and dinner services. By using your off-peak hours wisely you've increased revenue and improved your restaurant's overall efficiency.'