If your books have felt quieter these last couple of months, you’re not imagining it. But if you’ve been wondering whether something’s gone properly wrong this year, we’ve got good news.
We looked at booking data from 557 NZ salons and spas, covering more than 19 million bookings since 2020. The short version: this winter looks like every other winter.
Winter is doing exactly what winter always does
Every completed month of 2026 sits inside the normal range set by the last three years.
Looking at a typical salon year, June and July bring a shallow dip of about three per cent below a salon’s own average. It’s real, but it’s not a cliff. Interestingly, the quietest month of the year usually isn’t winter at all. It’s September, early spring, when the post-Matariki lull tends to land.
December stays the outlier. It’s the one month that genuinely lifts, sitting well above the rest of the year.
None of this is new. The same curve shows up in 2023, 2024, and 2025 almost exactly.
There’s a slow drift, but it’s not sudden
Visits per trading day have eased by around three per cent a year since 2023, and 2026 is continuing that same gentle slope. It’s a trend worth knowing about, but it’s been building quietly for three years. It’s not a 2026 problem.
Revenue per salon has largely held up through this, because average spend per visit has been rising. Clients are still investing in themselves. They’re just doing it slightly differently than they were a few years back.
The one thing that has genuinely changed
Here’s the part worth paying attention to. Bookings on the books for the next 30 days are down 15 percent on this time last year. That’s the first time in three years this figure has moved by any meaningful amount.
It also lines up with what a lot of salon owners are feeling: not that today’s chair is empty, but that the diary further out looks thinner than usual.
Rebooking is where the strongest salons pull ahead
This is where the story gets useful. Salons with stronger rebooking rates are carrying a noticeably fuller forward diary than salons that rely on clients calling back later.
The clients themselves aren’t behaving any differently between these salons. What’s different is whether the next appointment gets locked in before they walk out the door.
If your forward book feels thin right now, rebooking is the lever most within your control. A few places to start:
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Make rebooking part of every checkout, not an afterthought
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Use your Kitomba reports to see your current rebooking rate and track it over time
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Set a simple team target and check in on it monthly, not just at review time
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Make it easy to say yes there and then. Fewer taps, fewer follow-up calls
The takeaway
Your winter isn’t unusual. The shape of 2026 matches the shape of every year since 2023, what’s worth your attention isn’t the season. It’s the forward book, and rebooking is the clearest way to build it back up.
Want a clearer read on your own numbers? Have a look at your Business Summary in Kitomba reports.