What is the ethical aspect of overbooking?

The purposeful and deliberate act of overbooking runs counter to any acceptable standard of ethical business practice. In addition to the practice being ripe with serious legal, contractual and consumer protection violations, overbooking forces hospitality personnel into making conscious immoral and unethical choices.



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Because overbooking involves the intentional and deliberate act of promising more rooms than are actually available, the practice must therefore be associated with a number of ethical and moral dilemmas.

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Overbooking = more profit, but often = unhappy customers. Airlines use statistics to avoid overbooking, resulting in 50k people getting bumped off flights annually. Airlines use data to predict the number of passengers boarding a flight.

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Sometimes overbooking happens simply because a guest doesn't check out when they are scheduled to leave or if a room becomes “out of service” due to an unexpected maintenance issue. Sometimes, however, simultaneous bookings happen when two guests book the same room from different channels at the same time.

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As a result, airlines can, with a degree of certainty, overbook a flight considering the number of no-shows expected, thereby maximizing the capacity available to customers. For consumers, this practice is beneficial because it allows more consumers to fly at the time, date and fare of their choosing.

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Guests just want the rooms they have booked. Period. Consequently, a bad overbooking strategy can cause a lot of damage and a whole lot of stress: from guests to associates. It often leads to bad online reviews, harm to your online reputation, financial loss, and “real-life” complaints.

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Whether you're flying from New York or New Orleans, Lisbon or London, airlines continue overbooking to compensate for “no-shows” all the time. Simply put, they sell more tickets than they have available seats. And it's not an illegal practice.

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By overbooking flights, airlines compensate for so-called no-shows or last-minute cancellations. This is a complex analysis system based on historical flight data of passengers on the respective routes.

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Most commonly in business, you'll see violations such as discrimination, safety violations or poor working conditions. As well, bribery, theft, or conflict of interest.

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By overbooking, the hotel can ensure it sells as many rooms as possible, even when last-minute cancellations or no-shows occur. Overbooking is often one part of a business strategy that can lead to optimal or full occupancy. Overbooking can be a cost-effective strategy if implemented correctly.

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The business practice of bumping is not illegal. Airlines oversell their scheduled flights to a certain extent in order to compensate for “no-shows.” Most of the time, airlines correctly predict the “no shows” and everything goes smoothly. But sometimes, passengers are bumped as a result of oversales practices.

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Reduces your loss during last-minute cancellation
The major advantage of overbooking is that it offers a backup plan for canceled reservations. This means that if someone cancels their booking at the last moment, you don't have to worry about any loss because you have another guest lined up for check-in. Bazinga!

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Here's a list of common threats that hotels face:
  • Pandemics.
  • High taxes.
  • Rigid labor market.
  • Safety Emergencies.
  • Disorderly conduct.
  • Airbnb.
  • Intense competition in the industry.
  • Terrorism and political uneasiness.


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