Hotel Upselling: Best Ideas, Techniques & Tools

Looking for the best hotel upsell ideas to help you increase revenue, while also improving the guest experience? Upselling is a great approach that allows you to offer guests relevant extra services. However, such services may often feel forced or unwanted by guests. In today’s post, we’ll take a look at the ideas for upselling at a modern hotel that work better than you expect.

What is Upselling?

Upselling for hotels is a strategy and sales technique aimed at encouraging customers to purchase additional services. This usually includes buying room upgrades, breakfast, airport transfer, spa treatments, etc. The main goal behind such an approach is to provide relevant options that make your guests’ stay unforgettable. Additionally, hotel and vacation rental upsells offered during the stay generate extra income. When done properly, upselling hotel services can help you with:

• Offering guests services and amenities tailored to their needs;
• Personalizing the stay based on the guests’ preferences;
• Creating more opportunities for meaningful guest interactions;
• Promoting hotel facilities that may be overlooked;
• Making extra services easier to discover.

In reality, upselling doesn’t always provide just room upgrades. Today, it is also about using guest communication channels properly, such as emails, social media, as well as booking websites. There, guests may receive offers for early check-in, spa treatments, and other improvements or extra services based on their preferences. Successful hotel upsell ideas need to be convenient without appearing forced, while simply encouraging guests to spend more.

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Why Upselling May Not Go as Expected

In many cases, hotel upselling ideas may backfire because of how some hotels handle it. Instead of putting guests at the center of this process, hotel needs often prevail when planning upselling. Besides, if upselling feels too frequent or irrelevant, then guests will most likely feel repelled by it. Some hotels, even bed and breakfast ones, may try pressuring guests into buying not just something unnecessary but also something expensive, which only ruins the experience.

Additionally, timing matters a lot when upselling a hotel service. When trying to do it while offering unclear fees, not enough information, and in the worst possible moment (for example, check-in), upselling will most likely fail. That’s why hotel upsell ideas should stay relevant and well-placed at all times and clearly explain what guests will receive if they book an extra service.

What’s the Best Way to Handle Upselling?

If you are looking for the best way to handle upselling at a hotel, the bottomline of it is simply matching needs of a guest to the services you provide. For example, a guest travelling on business vs. a family with kids need to be treated completely differently when upselling. Offers to all these and other guest groups should be well thought-out, clearly priced, and relevant. Use guest preferences and booking details to make sure the services are personalized and actually fit the expectations of your guests. Such an approach helps to:

• Avoid irrelevant service promotions;
• Provide personalized offers;
• Use hotel amenities to their full potential;
• Build better relationships with guests.

What Guests Actually Want to Pay For

While you may want to try and guess what your guests want to pay for during upselling, you’ll probably guess wrong. According to recent surveys, most guests prefer late check-out and early check-in, as those are often mentioned as the most popular Airbnb upsells. Moreover, most clients prefer digital upselling rather than face-to-face upselling. Depending on actual needs, many travelers also value amenities that meet specific needs. For example, such hotel upsell ideas as heated pools, parking, extra beds, or prepared hot tubs are increasingly popular if they are tied to the accommodation guests are booking. When choosing what to offer, try focusing on vacation rental upsells that are:

• Convenient: Aim for services that save guests time and make their stay more comfortable.
• Relevant: Matching the guest’s individual needs helps make upselling more personalized.
• Easy to purchase: The services are easier to upsell when they can be added to a booking or ordered digitally in a few clicks.
• Clearly priced: Guests need to have a full understanding of what they are paying for.

How to make a service feel relevant? If your guests travel in groups, they would likely purchase extra robes, towels, breakfasts, and other related services that will rarely be wanted by clients who travel alone. To put it simply, if services match the needs and expectations of a particular traveler, group, or guest profile, guests are eager to purchase such a service. This is especially so if it is offered during booking in digital form. One of the golden rules here: look beyond the service itself and consider how useful each service is for a particular guest.

Best Hotel Upsell Ideas to Start With

So what are the best hotel upsell ideas if the success of such offers depends on matching your guests’ needs? Certainly, there are plenty of ways to address the necessities of every guest, but first, upselling in hotel needs to feel like a natural part of hospitality. Let’s take a look at some ideas that can easily work for many modern hotels that put the demands of their clients first:

• Early check-in: This service gives guests who arrive early an opportunity to access their room before the standard check-in time for an extra fee.
• Late check-out: If you want to let guests extend their stay in the room, this service can be really useful for upselling.  It is a perfect fit for those travelers who have late flights and flexible travel schedules.
• Breakfast packages: Offer this one of upselling hotel examples to guests who prefer having breakfast at the hotel. If your guests are traveling with kids or plan to have a long stay, this service can be upsold easily to this type of traveler.
• Room upgrades: By upgrading the room, your guests get not just a better accommodation option. They receive a better view, balcony, more space, and extra amenities that elevate their experience and can result in a positive review.
• Airport transfers: Many guests appreciate private or shared transportation to and from the airport. When upselling this service, highlight the benefits of reliable transportation during travelling and why booking this service is suitable for guests who arrive late or visit the destination for the first time.

When to Upsell Hotel Services

As we’ve already mentioned, timing is key when it comes to hotel upsell ideas. The most appropriate window for offering extra services and customized experiences is before arrival. In some cases, you can upsell a service during the stay but only if it’s directly connected to the way the guest is enjoying their stay. The main principle here is to offer a service when the guest can easily consider purchasing it, not when they are stressed.

For example, there are more chances for a guest to book a spa treatment while relaxing at a hotel, not during check-in. Similarly, it’s advisable to offer late check-out the evening before departure. This way, it is more relevant than if you promote such a service right after the guest’s arrival. Moreover, focusing on services that are fitting for a certain guest profile makes your upselling in hotel feel more effective and rewarding for the customer.

Presenting Services Without Pressure

One of the best ways to handle hotel upselling is by providing it as a recommendation rather than something forced, and especially not as a sales pitch. First of all, show clear pricing when offering a service or a hotel upsell program. Keep your hotel upsell ideas relevant and don’t pressure your guest into booking a service right away. Upselling is done best when there’s some time for consideration and when the service is well-matched to what’s actually necessary. In practice, this means you need to:

• Give guests time to decide: Don’t push guests to purchase an extra service immediately.
• Be transparent about pricing: Clearly show the full cost of the service and what it includes.
• Make declining easy: Guests should be able to easily skip an offer and not feel pressured.
• Focus on value: Don’t forget to explain how an extra service can make the stay more enjoyable or comfortable for the guest.

For these reasons alone, many hotels rely on digital upselling that happens during booking. Additionally, you can use a guidebook for guests who may want to consider buying an extra service during their stay without forcing anything directly. Making hotel upsell process digital is exceptionally useful since guests can browse services at their own pace. In the meantime, guests can learn something useful about the hotel, local activities, and some optional extras.

Why Guests May Not Know About Your Offers

So what’s the best way to make sure your guests actually consider buying the services you upsell? First and foremost, make sure all your provided services are visible. You will be surprised by how many guests simply don’t know that extras are offered by the hotel they stay at. The reason for that is simple – services are not presented clearly during booking. One of the ways to fix it and make hotel upsell ideas visible is to mention them at relevant but diverse stages, such as pre-arrival communication or direct booking.

One more recommendation is to put services in the guidebook where it can actually be seen multiple times during the stay. This way, guests will not only find out about services with ease but will consider whether the services are relevant to their needs. Present the offer at the right moment and do it conveniently for the guest. Guests will likely consider the services your Airbnb upsells, while you won’t have to aggressively market them.

Upselling Services with Hotel Booking

Hotel Booking is one of the most suitable plugins for managing your hotel. It is a powerful tool for those hospitality businesses looking for a way to easily manage accommodation, make services bookable online, and control rates dynamically. But can it handle a hotel upsell program digitally? It surely can, and there are two ways to achieve it.

First of all, using the plugin’s Services menu, you can add any Airbnb upsells you want. From late-night check-in to spa services and airport transfer, Hotel Booking allows you to use any hotel upsell ideas. You just need to specify the price of services you plan to upsell alongside detailed descriptions. Additionally, don’t forget to provide the periodicity of charging the guest. There are 3 options available:

• Once;
• Per day;
• Guest choice.

The last option comes with some extra settings, allowing you to set a minimum and maximum amount to charge the guest and whether to charge per accommodation or per guest. After you configure all services you are planning to upsell, guests will see them during checkout when booking a room on your hotel’s website.

Use Hotel Booking’s Notifier Add-on for Upselling

While simply setting up services for upselling is easy enough, there’s another way to upsell using the Notifier add-on. Compatible with the plugin, the add-on helps you configure emails that are sent before and after the check-in procedure to upsell services that are relevant at that stage.

If you want to inform your customers using SMS, this can also be done using a separate add-on. It automates sending out SMS upselling messages. In both of these cases, you can send out simple text-based advertisements that upsell relevant services. Alternatively, this approach to using Hotel Booking can be used to add a link to the store that handles upselling (in case you use a third-party website to manage extra services). A dedicated third-party store or upselling website can be useful when you want to:

• Keep all extra services in one place and make them accessible;
• Provide more detailed information about each service;
• Accept service requests online to make upselling convenient;
• Manage a wider range of services with ease;
• Link to services from multiple booking & marketing channels.

Conclusion

As you can see, varied hotel upsell ideas can not just increase revenue but also keep guests really interested in what you offer and elevate their experience. By offering what’s relevant and asked for when it’s needed, you can make upselling smooth and almost unnoticeable. Additionally, we recommend making the process as simple as possible using booking plugins to enhance your guests’ stay even more. Be it upgrades for guest rooms or personalized services, you need to remember that well-planned upselling hotel examples can help with:

• Promoting more hotel services: By using upselling, you give guests a simple way to discover services they may not know about. Aside from keeping guests informed, such an approach is also a great way to market services without being assertive.
• Making use of available facilities: Upselling also helps when you need to find a way to use all your amenities. In case some of them are overlooked, advertising services that include such facilities as spas, restaurants, or conference spaces for business travelers can help you use your hotel’s potential to the fullest.
• Encouraging direct booking: In addition to the above-mentioned benefits, upselling hotel services helps to drive direct bookings, especially if you promote services during online booking. Moreover, this serves as a perfect opportunity to develop your own direct booking site if you don’t already have one.
• Making the guest’s stay memorable: Want to make sure your one-time guests become regulars? Make their stay unforgettable by upselling thoughtful and personalized extras, such as a celebration package or welcome amenities. These add a special touch to the accommodation services and make a long-lasting impression, often influencing reviews in a positive way.