How To Master Hotel Upselling and Boost Ancillary Revenue — 2

The easiest way to drive ancillary services. Well. We’re back here with the same question, aren’t we? Before getting onto this one, go and read part 1 of How To Master Hotel Upselling and Boost Ancillary Revenue.

Hotels usually expect revenue generation from the guests that are staying. But what about the ones that aren’t staying? Both types of guests are equally important for the business and hotels must recognize the importance of both staying and the non-staying guests.This is where segmentation comes into play.

How to use segmentation for upselling?

Get to know your guests so you can offer them up-sells and cross-sells that might interest them. Use your PMS data and customer communication to segment your customers and personalize the offers you deliver. This will make it more fun for the guests and also increase conversion rates and therefore boosting business income.

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Here are a few of the information you can use to personalize your offers -

- The Age and Birthdates of the guest.

- Their purpose of Travel.

- International trip or a Domestic trip.

- Business trip or a pleasure trip.

- Length of their stay.

- Are the guests traveling solo, with a family, group or as a couple?

- How tight is the budget of your guest?

- Have the guest stayed at your hotel before?

- Have your guests booked any packages?

Find and analyze this information to explore and discover what could be more interesting and fun for your guests. Pick a few suitable to come up with, as too much choice can overwhelm people and cause them not to book at all.

Which upsell deals to offer to your guests to boost ancillary services?

The benefit of upselling is that you don’t have to reinvent or restructure your offer system. Simply start with room upgrades, early check-ins and late check-outs, etc. Many guests usually expect such offers and purchase these offers without thinking twice.

And If you do want to promote other sections of your hotel business, look into the services you already offer to find those that might work well as a cross-sell offer. Find out what guests often book during their stay, and consider bundling related services to create brilliant offer packages.

think about how you could reallocate certain areas of your hotel and use them as an upsell. The idea is to make the most of what you already have and generate more ancillary income without big investments.

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Some ideas for different guest segments.

- Spa package — An entire day of spa with a massage, scrub, steam and meditation session followed by a healthy lunch.

- Restaurant package — Add wine tasting and a kitchen tour maybe.

- Activity packages: A day out on hills, trekking, picnics, biking trips, etc.

- Couples — A romantic suite with a personal butler or fancy fuzzy dinner. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

- Business travelers: High-speed Wi-Fi, parking, special add-ons for meals and room service

- Solo travelers — Partner with local guides to offer activities solo travelers can join to meet others, host in-house movie nights or curate walks in the area to boost the experience

- Loyal guests and VIPs — Private dining at the Chef’s Table or a VIP tour of the wine cellar.

What are the best ways to boost ancillary revenue for non-staying guests?

Focusing more on the local community will remain important for generating income as long as international travel lags behind in previous years. Invite people who live near your property to explore your business and leisure services and create new offerings with them in mind.

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Take a look at your underutilized areas and find ways to offer them to guests who aren’t staying -

- Lobby and meeting rooms : Create coworking spaces in the lobby or meeting rooms during off-peak hours. Share information on social media, local news, and platforms like Bizly or Spacebase to attract guests.

- Gardens — Organize birthdays and small garden parties or rent this space to photographers for photo ops.

- Gym — Open your gym to the public out of season for people in your neighborhood. Consider offering live yoga or workout classes and allow locals to participate through apps like ClassPass.

- Restaurants — Attract more local customers to your restaurants with attractive seasonal menus, pickup or delivery service.

Now that you have some ideas on how to increase your ancillary income by upselling and engaging your local market, you are good to go! There is, however, one important thing to keep in mind: your guests always come first.

Creating an exceptional travel experience should be your top priority. Providing offers and services that customers love is a great way to do it. And when you do it right, you will see the positive impact on the satisfaction of your customers and on yours.