Closing for the off season without losing customers
Closing while the island is quiet? The website, Google listing and booking settings that prevent wasted trips and fill your calendar for reopening day.
Closing for a few weeks when the island goes quiet is often the smartest call of the year: renovations, a real vacation, inventory. The closure is not the problem. The problem is the visitor who finds your restaurant or shop on Google during those weeks, sees "Open", drives over from Simpson Bay or Gustavia, and finds the shutters down.
That person does not just leave you an empty seat. Sometimes they leave a review, and they remember that your information cannot be trusted. The good news: fixing it takes twenty minutes, as long as you do it before you lock up.
How do I announce a seasonal closure without losing customers?
Update three places on the same day: your Google Business Profile (special hours or temporarily closed), your website (a banner with the reopening date) and your booking tool (dates blocked during the closure, open from the first day back). The goal is simple: nobody makes a wasted trip, and everybody knows exactly when to come back.
On Google, start with special hours
Your Google listing is what most people see before they ever reach your website. It gives you two tools, and they do different jobs.
Special hours. You enter the exact dates you will be closed. The listing shows "Closed" on those days, then switches back to your regular hours on its own. For a closure of a few days to a few weeks, this is the cleanest option, because there is nothing to undo when you return.
Temporarily closed. The listing says the business is temporarily closed, with no end date. It makes sense for a long closure or one without a firm end, such as renovation work. But you have to switch it off yourself when you reopen, so set a reminder on your phone. Forgetting is the most common mistake.
One option to avoid at all costs: "Permanently closed". It tells Google and every potential customer that you no longer exist.
While you are there, publish an update on the listing with your reopening date and, if you have one, what is new this season. If your listing has never been set up properly, start with the Google Business Profile basics for island businesses.
On your website, one banner and one date
A visitor who lands on your site during the closure should understand what is going on within a second. A banner at the top of every page does the job: "Closed for our annual break from September 22 to October 18. Back on October 19, book your table now."
Three rules make that banner actually work:
- A date, not "soon". "Reopening soon" does not let anyone plan a trip.
- Both languages. American visitors planning November are already browsing, and many of your guests read French. One language is not enough on this island.
- It disappears on schedule. A "closed for the season" banner still showing in December drives away more customers than having no banner at all. On a well built site, it switches on and off by itself based on the dates you set.
Do not take the site offline, and do not replace every page with an "under construction" notice. Your pages keep working for you on Google while you are away. Removing them, even for three weeks, throws away what they have earned.
Bookings: close the dates, not the button
The classic mistake is removing the booking button from the site during the closure. The person who wanted to book the week you reopen can no longer find a way to do it.
What you should do instead is block the closure dates in your booking calendar and leave everything else open. The guest picks a date, sees the closed days are unavailable, and books for later. The closure even becomes a selling point: the first nights or the first boat trips after reopening fill up in advance.
Same logic on WhatsApp: an automatic away message with your return date and your booking link keeps dozens of chats from going unanswered.
Use the break to get ready for high season
A closure is also the one moment of the year when you can work on your website without getting in anyone's way. New menu, new photos, this season's prices, a proper read of the English pages: everything online when you reopen should be accurate, and fast. When a page takes more than 3 seconds to load on mobile, 53% of visitors leave (Google study), and high season leaves no time to fix things.
On the websites we build for restaurants, we can schedule the closure banner with a start and end date, in English and French, without shutting off bookings for the days after you return. The site loads in under 2 seconds with a PageSpeed score of 90+, whether you are closed or fully booked.
Measurable, not promised
These settings will not push you up Google overnight, and nobody honest will tell you otherwise. What they prevent, though, shows up right away: wasted trips, annoyed reviews, unanswered messages. And on reopening day, the bookings already in the calendar are a number you can count.
Our website design pricing is public — or get your quote within 24 hours for a site that is ready before you reopen.