Summer hours and holiday closures: a routine for seasonal businesses
How to update holiday and seasonal hours on Google, Apple Maps and a local business website, with a routine a one-person AI agency runs for every client.
An ice cream shop near the beach opens late every evening in summer, shuts on Mondays in winter, and closes for two weeks each year while the owners take a holiday. Last year the website said open, the Google listing said open, and the shop was dark. A family drove forty minutes for nothing and left a one-star review about it. The owner had told her web designer the dates, by text, in March.
Seasonal hours are simple to change and easy to forget, because they come round once a year and live in six places at once. For a one-person AI agency with a dozen local clients, that's a dozen chances a year to get it wrong.
The fix is a routine. Collect each client's dates once a season, change the hours everywhere on the same day, and check them afterwards. On Google, use special hours for short changes of up to six days, change the regular hours for a change that lasts the whole season, and mark the business temporarily closed for a closure of seven days or more.
How do you update holiday hours on Google?
In the business's Google Business Profile, Google's help page gives these steps:
- Open the profile and select Edit profile, then Hours.
- Next to Special hours, select edit.
- Pick the date. Google often suggests upcoming public holidays; you can review those or add your own date.
- Set the hours for that day, or tick Closed.
- Save.
Three details from the same page are easy to miss:
- Special hours only show if the regular hours are set to "Open with main hours".
- Special hours cover closures of up to six days in a row. For seven days or more, or a closure with no end date, Google suggests marking the business as temporarily closed instead.
- Confirm hours for official holidays, even when they don't change. Google says this shows customers the hours are accurate.
If the business offers something with its own hours, such as takeaway or deliveries, Google has a separate "More hours" setting for those, so the main hours stay clear.
Which change fits: special hours, new regular hours or temporarily closed?
Pick the setting by how long the change lasts:
| The change | What to use on Google | Example |
|---|---|---|
| A public holiday or one-off day | Special hours for that date | Closed on a bank holiday Monday |
| A short break of up to six days | Special hours for each day | Closed for a long weekend |
| A closure of seven days or more | Mark as temporarily closed, then reopen | Two weeks' annual holiday |
| New hours for a whole season | Change the regular hours, then change them back | Open until 9 pm from June to August |
Put the "change back" date in your calendar the moment you make the first change. The second change is the one people forget.
Where else do the hours need to change?
Google is only one place a customer looks. On the same day, update:
- The website. The homepage, the footer, the contact page, and any "visit us" page. If the site includes structured data for the business, Google's documentation shows how to mark a seasonal closure with a start and end date.
- Apple Maps. Apple's guide for business listings lets you add temporary hours for holidays and closures, including holiday open and holiday closed days, and asks that the hours on the listing match the business's own website.
- The booking tool. Block the dates, or customers will book slots that don't exist.
- Social media profiles and any pinned post.
- The phone. A voicemail message that mentions the closure saves a lot of return calls.
The homepage should carry the change too. A short notice at the top ("Closed 11 to 24 August, back on the 25th") answers the question before anyone rings. If you're working through a local SEO checklist for a new client, add seasonal hours to it, so it's set up from launch.
What does a seasonal hours routine look like?
One routine, run for every client, keeps this from depending on memory:
| When | What you do | Who does it |
|---|---|---|
| Start of each season | Ask every seasonal client for their dates and hours | You, one message each |
| As soon as dates arrive | Put the change date and the change-back date in your calendar | You |
| A week before | Update Google, Apple Maps, the website, the booking tool | You, or the client if it's theirs |
| The day it starts | Search for the business as a customer would and check what shows | You |
| The day it ends | Change everything back and check again | You |
The check on the day matters. Listings can take a while to show a change, and a quick search as a customer tells you what people see.
Keep each client's dates with the rest of their details, not in a chat thread. Keeping track of clients and promises in one place means next year's routine starts from this year's dates.
How do you get the dates from the client?
Ask early and make it easy to answer. A short message works:
"Summer's coming. Are your hours changing, and are you closing at all? Send me the dates and I'll update Google, Apple Maps, your website and your booking page."
Replies will arrive by text, email and phone, sometimes in pieces. Turn each one into a task the moment it lands. If you already manage client requests from email and text as a single list, seasonal hours slot straight in.
Then confirm back in one line: "Closed 11 to 24 August, back on the 25th. I'll update everything by the 4th." That line is what you both point to if anything goes wrong.
What if the client forgets to tell you?
Some will. The shop closes, nobody mentions it, and the first you hear is a customer complaint. Three habits make that rarer:
- Ask twice. Once at the start of the season, and once a week before the usual closing dates from last year. "Last year you closed from the 11th. Same this year?" is easy to answer.
- Keep last year's dates. Most seasonal businesses repeat their pattern. Last year's dates are the best guess for this year's, and a good prompt for the owner.
- Watch for clues. A post on the business's social page about "our summer break" is a reason to send a message the same day.
If a closure does slip through, fix every listing as soon as you hear, then add the missing dates to next year's calendar. Don't make the owner feel bad about it. The routine exists because busy people forget.
Is updating holiday hours part of a care plan?
It should be written down either way. If your care plan covers it, say which places you update: only the website, or the Google and Apple listings too. If it doesn't, tell the client plainly that the listings are theirs to update, and send them the dates as a reminder.
The clearest place to settle it is the plan itself. When writing a service recipe for your care plan, add a line: "Seasonal and holiday hours updated on the website and Google listing, within two working days of you sending the dates."
Seasonal businesses also have quiet months, and those are a good time for the jobs nobody has time for in the busy season: new photos, a refreshed menu page, a clearer booking flow. Those are extras, so quote them before you start. Sending them from the same place as your other quotes, deposits and payments keeps the client's history together.
The ice cream shop needed none of this to be clever. It needed two dates in a calendar, six places updated on the same day, and one search on the morning it closed.