Upselling is a valuable tool for traditional service providers and e-commerce businesses. Within the hospitality industry, hotels and resorts can offer guests add-on services or products at an additional fee to enhance their stay. Travellers are willing to pay a premium for convenient upgrades and extras that improve their overall experience. Seize the opportune moment and upsell these 10 services to a client during the booking journey.
Upsell your Early check-in
Early check-in is an easy selling experience. If your customers arrive at their destination at an ungodly hour, they’ll love being able to check in ahead of schedule.
Did you arrive early? Not as much traffic as expected? No problem. With an early check-in your guests won’t have to stand outside and wait for the scheduled time. You can arrive earlier and enjoy your room peacefully.
Although many travellers are content to leave their bags at the reception desk, those travelling with small children and honeymooners, in particular, will appreciate the early access to the room.
Offering an early check-in has two major advantages. Firstly, it offers flexibility to the customer, which will allow you to improve their experience with your hotel.
Secondly, monetising the service will allow you to increase your revenue. An example of the effectiveness and profitability of early check-in can be seen in an article in Hospitalitynet. They launched an early check-in service for a 30-day trial period, and the results were very good.
Their customers were delighted with this new service, and for one particular hotel, during the 30-day period with a low rate of $125, 68% of additional sales were attributed to early check-in and late check-out purchases. With upsells tailored to each customer, the average upsell value of early check-in was $35 and for late check-out, $37. At weekends they saw this rate skyrocket to a staggering $100. In total, they added an additional 28% to the nightly rate/room revenue.
Stock the room
Those travelling for a special occasion may wish to prepare the room in advance with an arrival bottle of wine or bouquet of flowers. Rather than sourcing these items upon arrival in a new place, your property can rid them of the inconvenience. All guests will appreciate the suggestion to stock the minibar.
Automated check-in
Give your guests the opportunity to improve their stay by providing them with documents prior to their arrival. This will speed up the check-in process and at the same time relieve the pressure on your employees. An online check-in solution saves you time, money, automates all manual tasks, reduces waiting time at the reception desk and therefore improves the customer experience.
Furthermore, according to a SkidMore Studio survey, 90% of respondents are in favour of an online check-in process. Valuing the convenience and flexibility that this service offered them during their stay.
With Chekin, you can automate this process with a few clicks.
Upsell, Tours and activities
Does your hotel have a tour desk or work with local operators? Leisure and recreation travellers will appreciate the possibility of obtaining tickets for the main tourist attractions. Get off the beaten track and offer workshops, cooking classes and lesser known sites.
In November 2020, TripAdvisor published a study, showing the evolution of Tours and extra activities consumed by travellers, before and after the covid.
More than 52% of respondents said they preferred and consumed more outdoor activities in nature. Whereas before the covid, the majority of travellers favoured activities in the city, with visits to museums, attractions and famous monuments.
In 2019, parks and nature tours accounted for 25% of extra activities on Tripadvisor. This number rose to 34% during the COVID period (between May and September 2020), and is still rising.
In addition, the UNWTO (World Tourism Organisation) expert group also forecasts a growing demand for nature-based tours and activities.
It is therefore important, if you have the opportunity, to develop and offer your customers more nature-based activities and tours.
Airport transfers
Don’t hesitate to offer your guests direct transport from the airport to your hotel. Remind your guests that booking an airport transfer in advance is safer, cheaper and more cost effective than hailing a taxi in the arrival hall.
Contact an external company that will take care of transporting your guests from the airport to the hotel, and save your travellers the fatigue of searching for a free taxi in the airport.
You don’t necessarily need to monetize this service. But you still have the option to take a small percentage of the amount collected by the transport company, for bringing them customers.
Gift vouchers
Does your hotel have a spa, wellness centre or restaurant? A voucher for these services will delight guests travelling for occasions such as birthdays or Mother’s Day. Establishments that do not have these services may want to consider partnering with local independent businesses.
According to a HoistGroup survey of over 600 consumers in 2021, 77% of respondents intended to buy a gift voucher this year.
Also keep in mind to adjust your gift voucher offer according to the time of year. Hotels are able to double or even triple their gift voucher sales during certain times of the year. Here are the most effective times of the year:
- Black Friday
- Cyber Monday
- New Year (even the day after New Year’s Eve)
- Christmas
Take advantage of this trend quickly, the market has grown by 50% since COVID (according to GCVA and KMPG studies). For example Nordic Hotel, managed to generate 1.5 million revenue in 24 hours with their gift vouchers offers during specific times of the year (Black Friday).
Tourist tax
With more destinations introducing tourist taxes, it adds another layer to your guests’ to-do lists. Taking care of this service on their behalf will ease their mind and allow them to focus on planning their holiday activities.
Chekin offers a service, which automatically calculates tourist taxes based on country, number of travellers and their ages. No need to waste time calculating these taxes, you can now be more focused on your guests! Check our Tourist taxes features here.
Car hire
Assisting your guests with car rental is a win-win solution. Not only does it save them time, but hiring a vehicle in advance works out cheaper. At the same time, this upsell experience will boost your ancillary revenue.
Upsell your Room upgrades
As the travel date approaches, offer your potential customer a room upgrade to enhance their stay. Set the cost of the upgrade strategically and both the customer and your company will get a good deal that will increase their overall satisfaction factor and your revenue.
This strategy has many benefits…
- Increased customer satisfaction leads to increased customer loyalty
- Increased incremental revenue through service-based sales
- Revolutionary employee benefits – Skills, money and wealth. One of the great benefits of room upgrades is on the employees. It improves their sales skills (by offering upgrades at the reception desk), increases their income and allows them to improve their standard of living and thus their loyalty to your hotel.
Upsell your Late check-out
Rounding off with the natural partner to early check-in; late check-out is an appealing upsell experience to those departing late at night. Your patrons will appreciate the possibility to sleep in and shower before making their way to the airport.
Conclusions
After successfully upselling to a few different customers, you will begin to get a clearer idea of what kinds of customers will benefit the most from additional products. You should keep track of the moments and traits these customers have in common, and integrate the trends into your sales process to proactively identify upselling opportunities on an ongoing basis.
Keep in mind to offer the right products at the relevant moment to the right customers, and you’ll have an effective upsell and cross-sell strategy in no time.
