Things to look at:
Your queries: Are they complex with a large number of joins? Would it be feasible to de-normalise your tables to reduce the number of joins?
EXPLAIN: You could try using EXPLAIN on your queries, to see if that sheds any light on the problem.
Indexes: Are your tables indexed on appropriate columns? Bit of a trade-off here, as indexing can speed select queries, but slow down updates and inserts.
Table size: Do any of your tables contain large quantities of old data (e.g. bookings from months ago) that could be deleted or archived?
Also, if you can get hold of the March 2009 edition of Linux Magazine, there was a good article on general system performance tuning. Doesn't appear to be available on their website yet, though.
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