It may surprise you, considering that, despite the Christmas music already playing in malls and Santa displays popping up, it’s not actually Christmas yet, it’s not even Halloween, but your festival salon bookings will already be ramping up, writes Shannon Gaitz.

Extensive research from salon software company Phorest analysed average bookings for Australian salons, discovering that the important date (we’ll call it D-Day) where salon bookings start rapidly climbing is October 24 – yep, that’s today.

Phorest Salon Software have looked into data from 2018 and analysed the average bookings for over 6000 salons across hair, spa, beauty and aesthetic, tracking the climb to Christmas madness that happens in salon. The data pinpoints October 24 as the date the public starts booking in their holiday hair beauty appointments. This important time of year accounts for Christmas and New Year’s, spring racing, vacations and summer touch ups so the trend is obvious and now these stats back it up.

The data indicates that by the first week of November, salon appointment books have already doubled the average number of weekly bookings taken – jumping from 9.34 to 18.4 appointments made for the Christmas season. Furthermore, once it gets to the end of November, that original number almost triples.

All this to say, it makes sense to utilise this information to stress to clients that bookings are going fast, and if they want an appointment at the most important time of year for salons, they need to be booking quick and early.

“If your clients want to secure that appointment with their favourite stylist right before their Christmas party, they should have their appointment made before December hits, when the number of bookings made at Australian salons shoot up to more than 10 times the average rate,” said Ronan Perceval, CEO of Phorest Salon Software.

“Phorest data also shows that by around 22 December, bookings taken by salons drop off dramatically as salon books fill up for the festive season – from Christmas right through to New Year.”

It’s time to spread that message to clients on social media, in marketing and in salon so that they know early bookings are essential for the most wonderful time of the year.

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