Stayntouch, a cloud hotel property management system (PMS) and guest-centric technology company, has unveiled UpsellPRO, an advanced upselling tool designed to expand and maximize revenue opportunities for hotels, according to the company.
Powered by attribute-based selling (ABS) and dynamic pricing, the tool enables hotels to unbundle room reservations and market individual room features to guests during the booking process. It is available as a built-in product within the Stayntouch PMS, building on the company’s existing upselling capabilities.
Hotel guests continue to be challenged and hampered by rising costs and the limitations of legacy technologies, which limit control over their room purchases and bookings. According to a 2021 joint report released by Stayntouch and the NYU Tisch Center of Hospitality, 68% of travelers believe ABS would provide clarity when booking a hotel, with 46% willing to pay more to select their preferred room attributes. In addition to delivering ABS without fundamentally altering the existing hotel distribution model, UpsellPRO provides the functionality for travelers to pick and choose their preferred features and services during their stay while also offering hotels new avenues to drive ancillary and room revenue.
According to the company, additional features and benefits include:
- Instant availability, dynamic pricing and easy onboarding and deployment—UpsellPRO automatically prices features to maximize conversions, so hotels do not need to set prices manually. Once activated within the Stayntouch PMS, UpsellPRO operates within a hotel’s existing room category-centric inventory model.
- Increased revenue and conversions—ABS drives up to a 23% increase in upsell revenue through attractive upsell options at a variety of price points, empowering guests to personalize their stay and maximizing revenue for hotels within each room category. Attribute-based upsell options may include features such as ocean views, hardwood floors or special check-in services. Prices are automated and vary based on demand.
- A hyper-personalized guest experience—Allows guests to choose room setup, add ancillary services and opt for early check-in or an extended stay to tailor their on-property experience. Using existing room categories and hotel inventory models, hotel operators can implement ABS strategies without additional technology investments.
- Automated mobile and kiosk-based upsell and cross-sell offers—Delivers automated offers for room upgrades, amenities and monetized early check-in/late check-out directly accessible via a guest’s smartphone or the hotel’s welcome kiosk.
- Real-time consumer and performance data—Provides nuanced information about guests’ room preferences and price sensitivity. Hotels can use ABS data to further analyze their performance over time and understand the value and demand behind each of their attributes, services or amenities.
“For a long time in terms of how upselling has happened is that it’s taking an individual room category and offering a guest the ability to move from one category to the next and doing a price based off of what those are,” Jacob Messina, CEO, Stayntouch, told Hotel Business. “It’s really not personalized. It is essentially just saying, ‘We have this room and have another higher category available. Would you like that?’”
He said the company has put a number of pieces of logic in its product to make it smarter and more personalized.
“What this allows, though, is a truly personalized version of upselling,” he said. “So, we know that in the past the guest has purchased these types of items. Let’s make recommendations based on that. It’s identifying that the guest may have purchased this room type, which they may be very happy with. And instead of just trying to sell you into a higher price room type, it may just offer a view upgrade instead or certain a room feature.”
He added, “It drives incremental revenue for a hotelier and uses unutilized spaces. A lot of times higher-end inventory goes unsold. It helps monetize other components of a hotel, whether that’s parking spaces, meeting rooms or all sorts of other pieces. A hotel can get really creative with it.”
