How much can you really make from upselling?

A recent benchmarking report shows that factors such as property type (e.g. luxury hotel, city hotel, hostel…) and location (e.g. downtown, countryside, beach…) have a strong impact on how much revenue you can generate from upselling. While upscale leisure hotels show the highest performance, hostels, branded hotels and downtown properties also do very well. Other elements playing a role include your property’s capacity, the average length of stay and percentage of same-day reservations among others.

If you are new to upselling, estimating your property’s potential extra revenue by taking the above factors into account is extremely difficult without a data-based forecasting tool. But how could you even create such a tool without access to data from various types of properties in different locations?

That’s where the incremental revenue calculator comes in. It will help you consider all the relevant factors when forecasting your property’s upsell revenue.

But before you get started with it, there are two more important elements to consider.

Two other key factors in upselling are timing and reach. Today, many hotels have an upselling program, but it’s often only meant for guests checking in at the front desk. These properties are losing out because using an automated upselling platform is much more effective and efficient at selling ancillary services and upgrades pre-arrival. This approach increases your reach, lets you promote a wider variety of deals and boosts your conversion rate. Sounds good, right?

But because implementing an upselling platform costs both time and money, many hoteliers wonder if it’s worthwhile.

If this is something you’ve been wondering about, the incremental revenue calculator is a simple tool you can use to learn how much potential your hotel has when it comes to upselling.

Just download the Google Sheet below, enter your data and see how much extra revenue your property could generate every month by switching to an automated upselling solution.

So you can get the most accurate result from the incremental revenue calculator, here’s a quick outline of the information you’ll need to supply.

In the first step, you can select your property type, star rating and location type from drop-down menus.

You will need a few key hotel stats to complete the second section of the sheet.

1. Number of rooms or beds: This one is simple – the more rooms (or beds, if you’re running a hostel) you have, the more guests you can potentially upsell.
2. Average occupancy: Like the point above – the more of your rooms you sell, the more chances you get to promote paid upgrades or extra services.
3. Average length of stay (LOS): If you have a short average LOS, you have higher turnover and more guests you can offer deals. The longer your average LOS, the fewer chances you have to upsell, but in turn, guests might opt for multiple extras for a longer stay.
4. Same-day reservations (as a % of total reservations): Last-minute bookers are harder to upsell to since automated pre-stay emails are usually sent out several days before arrival. Having a lot of same-day reservations means fewer chances to upsell.
5. Percentage of bookings coming from Booking.com: Unlike other upselling platforms which only reach out to guests who book directly with you, Oaky lets you email guests who reserve via Booking.com. This greatly expands your reach and helps boost your results.
6. Percentage of direct bookings (from your website, via phone or email): Direct bookers are easy to reach via an upselling platform, so the more people book direct, the more guests you can offer pre-arrival deals to.

And that’s it! Once you’ve plugged in all your numbers, you’ll immediately see your property’s upselling potential.

Ready to learn how much incremental revenue you can make from upselling?

Then download the incremental revenue calculator now and get started!