It is the evening before a festival. You have decided to close for three days, the staff are going home, and you have told your regulars. Then on the first holiday morning the phone keeps ringing: people who searched for you on Google, saw “Open” and drove over to a locked shutter.
Holiday hours are a small task that causes a lot of annoyance when skipped. Here is how to set them on Google and your website so customers know where they stand, without accidentally telling the world you have shut for good.
Regular hours, special hours and seasonal hours
It helps to be clear about which kind of change you are making.
- Regular hours are your normal weekly timetable. These stay as they are.
- Special hours are one-off changes for particular dates: closed on a festival day, open late before a festival, a half day on a public holiday.
- Seasonal hours are a different timetable for a period of weeks or months: shorter winter hours, longer summer evenings for a cafe, a wedding-season rush, a hill-station business that works only part of the year.
The mistake people make is editing their regular hours for a holiday, then forgetting to change them back. Weeks later the profile still says you close at two.
Setting special hours on your Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile has a special hours option for exactly this. You choose the date and set either the changed hours or “closed” for that day, and your regular hours stay untouched underneath. When the date passes, the profile goes back to normal on its own.
Things worth knowing:
- Set them early. Add holiday dates as soon as you have decided, not the night before. People plan visits days in advance.
- Add the days you are open, too. If a public holiday falls on a day you normally work and you are staying open, confirming your hours for that date tells customers you have thought about it. Google sometimes shows a note that hours on a holiday might differ when no special hours are set.
- Google may ask you to confirm. Before some public holidays, Google may prompt profile owners to confirm their hours. Answer it accurately.
- Keep your hours accurate generally. Hours can also be changed by suggested edits from the public. If something looks wrong, our post on suggested edits to your Google listing explains what to do.
For seasonal timetables, the cleanest approach for a few weeks is usually special hours for each affected date. For a longer season, change the regular hours at the start, and put a reminder in your calendar to change them back at the end.
Temporarily closed is not permanently closed
If you are shutting for a longer stretch, such as a renovation, a family event or a long festival break, Google Business Profile lets you mark the business as temporarily closed. Customers see that you are closed for now, and you can reopen the profile when you are back.
Be very careful not to choose permanently closed by mistake. That tells Google and every customer that the business no longer exists. It is meant for a business that has shut down for good. Getting a listing back from that state is not something you want to deal with in the week you reopen.
For a closure of a day or two, you do not need either status. Special hours set to “closed” for those dates are enough.
Your website: banner and contact page
Many customers check your website rather than Google, especially for bookings and deliveries. Make the change there too.
- A short banner at the top of the site. One line is enough: “Closed 1 to 3 [month] for [festival]. Orders placed now will be sent on [date].” Most WordPress themes and many plugins can show a notice bar. Set it to come down when you reopen, or put a reminder in your calendar to remove it.
- The contact page. Add the holiday hours beside your regular hours, with the dates in full.
- Footer hours. If your footer lists opening hours on every page, it should not contradict the banner.
- Booking and delivery settings. If customers can book appointments or choose delivery slots, block the closed days in the booking system itself. A banner does not stop someone booking a slot that does not exist.
- Structured data. If your site’s LocalBusiness schema includes opening hours, remember those describe your normal hours. You do not have to rewrite them for every festival, but they should be right the rest of the year.
Write the dates the way your customers read them. “Closed 1 to 3 [month]” is clearer than “Closed for the long weekend”, especially for customers in another country.
Auto-replies while you are away
Messages do not stop because the shop is shut. Set up replies so people are not left wondering:
- WhatsApp Business has an away message you can switch on, with your reopening date.
- Email: an out-of-office reply on the main business address, saying when you return and who to contact for anything urgent.
- Phone: a voicemail greeting or call-forwarding note if your provider supports it.
- Website forms: change the confirmation message to say when the enquiry will be answered.
If you are not sure which of these channels your customers actually use most, our post on website chat, WhatsApp or phone may help you decide where to focus.
Festivals and holidays to plan for
Every business has its own calendar, depending on where you are and who your customers are. Some examples:
- Diwali, when many businesses close for a day or more, and others stay open late in the days before.
- Durga Puja, which in West Bengal and other eastern states can mean several days of changed hours.
- Eid, where the date depends on the moon sighting and may only be confirmed close to the day. Set the likely date, then check and adjust.
- Christmas and New Year, which matter for businesses with customers in the UK, Europe and the US, even if you are open in India, because overseas clients expect slower replies.
- National holidays, local election days and regional festivals specific to your state or town.
Once a year, sit down with a calendar and mark the dates you expect to change hours. Then you can enter them on Google and plan the website banner well ahead, rather than in a rush.
Keep every listing in step
Google is the most visible, but it is not the only place your hours appear. Apple Maps, Bing Places, Facebook, Instagram and directories may show hours too. You do not need to update every small directory for each holiday, but the main ones customers use should not contradict each other. Our post on name, address and phone consistency explains how to keep a master record of your details, including hours.
Review after the holiday
When you reopen, take five minutes to check:
- The website banner is gone and the contact page is back to normal hours.
- Your Google profile shows your regular hours, and any temporary closure has been lifted.
- Auto-replies on WhatsApp, email and phone are switched off.
- Booking and delivery slots are open again.
- Any enquiries that came in during the break have been answered.
Note anything that went wrong, such as customers who turned up anyway or a booking that slipped through, and fix it for next time. These small details are part of how a business gets found and trusted locally, which we cover in our guide to getting local customers online.
If your website does not make it easy to add a notice bar or change the hours shown, that is usually a quick fix. It is the kind of everyday change covered by our website services, and we will tell you what is involved before we start.
Next in this series: Embedding Google Maps on Your Website: Does It Help?
