Hotel Operations

Guide to in-stay hotel upselling

Boost your hotel's revenue with in-stay upselling! Discover effective strategies to personalize guest experiences, automate upsells, and maximize ancillary revenue effortlessly

2/26/2025
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Hotel Operations

Guide to in-stay hotel upselling

Boost your hotel's revenue with in-stay upselling! Discover effective strategies to personalize guest experiences, automate upsells, and maximize ancillary revenue effortlessly

2/26/2025

Before we explore in-stay hotel upselling in the current blog post. Let us get a tiny recap on the previous story about pre-arrival hotel upselling

A guest who was supposed to check in at your property in a couple of days receives two enticing upsell offers — 20% off on a room upgrade and a great deal on airport transfers. 

His ideal next step would be to click “ADD”, pay for it and voila! It’s done. 

But now, on his day of arrival, he is even more intrigued about the additional services your property has in store. 

So, what's next? 

Introducing, “In-stay Hotel Upselling”. 

Unlike pre-arrival upselling, it’s the most crucial and effective strategy that could make or break your upselling game. 

Excited to know more? Let’s begin!

What is in-stay hotel upselling and why is it important?

In-stay upselling is the second and the most impactful window you get to promote your services during your guest's stay

But here is the best part: With the best guest management platform, perfect upselling strategy, and minimal staff intervention — you can remarkably transform your upselling game.

Wonder how? Read on…

Importance and key benefits of in-stay upselling

  • Allows guests to customise and enhance their stay throughout: Unlike calling the front desk staff each time and requesting for a service. Guests can now customise their stay on their device conveniently, with just a few clicks. 
  • Generates additional revenue for the hotel: Room revenue is not enough to cover all the hotel overhead expenses such as utilities, labour costs maintenance, etc. Ancillary revenue not only helps cover the cost but also generates an added profit margin.
  • Builds brand and guest loyalty: Showing genuine interest in enhancing your guest's stay makes them feel valued, thereby considerably impacting your brand and guest loyalty. 

Here is a use case of the significance of upselling:

With the adoption of cloud solutions and effective upselling, IHG Hotels and Resorts was able to achieve an average night room revenue of $18 across their Essential and Suite brands and $40 for Luxury & Lifestyle.

What makes in-stay upselling different from pre-arrival upselling?

In simple terms, pre-arrival upselling is a quick nudge given to your guests about your services before their arrival. Whereas upselling at the in-stay stage comprises of your upsell promotions throughout their stay.

But most importantly, what makes in-stay different from pre-arrival is that in-stay upselling relies more on real-time data and guest behaviour while pre-arrival relies on presumptive offers based on the guest’s profile. Nonetheless, both strategies are essential and play a huge part in driving conversions and building brand and guest loyalty.

How does guest behaviour influence spending decisions once they’ve checked in?

Unlike at the pre-arrival stage, wherein guests virtually browse through your hotel offers. What truly influences your guest's spending decisions once they’ve checked in is the ability to examine your hotel services in person. 

Moreover, to further enhance your guests' experience and drive conversion, your staff can assess your guest's needs directly and persuade them to take action.

In fact, with the convenience of placing an order themselves by using self-service technology, guests are likely to spend 20% more at the in-stay stage.

6 Top In-Stay Hotel Upselling Techniques

In this section, let’s explore the importance and implementation strategy of the 6 In-stay hotel upsell techniques.

Importance of each of the 6 in-stay hotel upselling techniques

  • Room Service and Add-On Amenities: Offering discounted room upgrades and hotel amenities increases your sales and lets your guests enhance their stay by just paying a little extra. 
  • Workshops: Suggesting spa, wellness or fitness packages is a great way to attract health-conscious guests and boost your ancillary revenue. 
  • On-Site Dining Specials or Upgraded Menus: In-house dining lets the guest avoid stepping out of your hotel and explore the various meal options your in-house restaurant has to offer. 
  • Extended Stay Offers on Discounts: Certain guest profiles might require a 1-2 day extension to their stay. Offering discounts might persuade them to immediately grab the offer. 
  • Exclusive Access to Events or VIP Services: Luxury travellers or families travelling with kids or senior citizens might need private time for themselves and won’t mind paying extra for it. 
  • Private Excursions or Transportation Services: A few guests might prefer private transfer services who don’t intend to join a group and want to enjoy exclusivity. 

Implementation of the techniques  

Refer to the tabular format for a quick overview of the hotel upselling ideas and it's respective guest profile along with upselling hotel examples.

Also read: Want to drive exceptional ancillary revenue? Explore an exhaustive list of 12 hotel upselling techniques that are sure to get you the desired results. 

How to Track & Optimize In-Stay Upselling?

To get the best results out of your upselling process, you must focus on tracking and optimising your strategy. But how does it work?

Let’s understand the process with the help of key performance indicators. 

1. Open rate metric: 

  • Track: Asses the open rate metric or click-through rates to determine which offers were enticing for the guest to view them. 
  • Optimise: Use this metric to assess the low-performing campaigns. Revamp them with enticing discounts, visually appealing images, descriptions, etc. 

2. Conversion rate metric: 

  • Track: Review the conversion metric to evaluate the number of guests who availed of your service. 
  • Optimise: Evaluate what worked for the highest revenue-generating campaign and use it to redo the other strategies. 

3. Performance metric: 

  • Track: Evaluate which upselling communication is performing better and which ones aren’t. 
  • Optimise: Increase the frequency of the highest-performing campaign to boost revenue. 

4. Time preference: 

  • Track: Check out the ideal time frame or the best time to trigger the upsell service.
  • Optimise: Based on the data, set a timeline to trigger each campaign to achieve a higher open and conversion rate.

5. Revenue metric: 

  • Track: Analyse the revenue generated from each of the upselling strategies within a specified period, i.e. monthly, quarterly, or yearly. 
  • Optimise: Use this metric and strategically modify your prices to increase hotel sales and profitability. 

To conclude, here’s a statistic that shows how technology can help you achieve optimal results. 

As per Oracle and Skift’s Hospitality Industry Trends Report 2025, nearly 51.5 % of hotel executives plan to use analytics and artificial intelligence to learn about guests’ behaviours and offer more personalized marketing and advertisements. Whereas, 48.3 % intend to use the technology to personalize customer service before and during their trip.

What can you upsell at the In-stay stage for a higher conversion rate? 

Upselling at the in-stay stage requires you to consider a few factors such as your guest profile, and the duration of their stay. But a few factors remain constant such as the services you have to offer, both on-site and offsite. 

Hence, to make it easier, we have curated a list of offers that can be catered to both limited-service and premium hotels. We suggest you customise and add more points to the list.

For limited-service hotels:

 

For premium hotels: 

How can Guestara help you automate in-stay hotel upselling?

Revenue fluctuations are a common challenge that most hoteliers face. Hence, in order to sustain your hospitality business amidst the several factors affecting it. You must incorporate the best hotel upselling software to maintain a steady flow of additional revenue.

Check out Guestara — an AI Guest management platform that offers industry-led hotel upsell features and guest engagement solutions. It will not only help you effectively drive revenue but also enhance guest experience and loyalty. Read on to know how…

Customise your in-stay upsell menu to meet guest expectations 

Guestara hotel upsell tool lets you seamlessly customise upselling at the in-stay stage. Most importantly, you have total control over how you want to upsell services to drive optimum results. 

For instance, you can manage your inventory in real-time by adding and removing items based on their availability. Save time by temporarily removing the item by switching the toggle off and making it reappear just by switching it back on. 

Guestara Customized Upsell Menue

Automate upselling through our Guest Engagement Tool 

Worried about missing out on an upsell opportunity? Guestara Engagement Feature ensures you don't miss out on anything by helping you personalise and automate your in-stay upsell offers to boost revenue.

Whether it's in-room dining service, guided tour, spa packages, etc., the tool lets you provide tailored upsell offers based on your guest's profile. Select an upsell template, guest communication channel and preferred time to optimise your upsell strategy.

Allow guests to send requests using our Guest App with ease

What's better than letting your guests plan their stay with just a few clicks? Guestara's Guest App offers an engaging digital experience by letting your guests browse through a wide range of your hotel services. 

Whether it's exclusive meal arrangements, excursions or other add-on options. Your guests can browse, select, and instantly be notified about the status of their request. You just have to share a link with your guests to the integrated Guest App and let them have a seamless experience.

Guestara Guest App

View and manage requests on the Task Board of the Guestara Tool 

Get a quick overview of requests in one single place with the help of Guestara’s Task Board feature. Boost your operational efficiency by letting your staff track, schedule and coordinate the upsell requests among your department. 

Moreover, the Task Board feature enhances better coordination among your departments, thereby improving your delivery time and service quality.  

Set and track SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to streamline the process 

Want to maximise operational efficiency while maintaining service quality, but no idea how to? Setting Standard Operating Procedures for your staff is the only way forward to sustaining a quality benchmark.

As an owner or a hotel manager, you must SOPs, i.e. define quality standards and service delivery timelines for all your upsell services. You get notified instantly If a service gets delayed or is at a subpar level, prompting immediate action.  

Track the overall performance and revenue generated on Guestara’s Dashboard

Want to quickly get an overview of your in-stay hotel upselling strategies? Check out Guestara’s Upsell Analytics Feature which lets you effortlessly track your open rates, conversion rates, revenue metric, etc. 

It also highlights your best-performing upselling items and campaigns with pie charts, graphs, lists, etc. This can be further used to optimise the strategies that are working and discard the ones that are not. 

Upselling analytics dashboard

Closing Thoughts

Upselling in hospitality industry is not just an option, it’s now become a prerequisite. Hence, If you want to stay ahead of the game, you must streamline and optimise your entire upsell process with the help of AI-powered guest management software. 

Are you ready to explore? Book your personalised demo today!

Yashika Karkera
Senior Content Writer
Looking for Guest Management guide in 2025?
Book a personalised demo now.
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Hotel Operations

Guide to in-stay hotel upselling

Boost your hotel's revenue with in-stay upselling! Discover effective strategies to personalize guest experiences, automate upsells, and maximize ancillary revenue effortlessly

2/26/2025

Before we explore in-stay hotel upselling in the current blog post. Let us get a tiny recap on the previous story about pre-arrival hotel upselling

A guest who was supposed to check in at your property in a couple of days receives two enticing upsell offers — 20% off on a room upgrade and a great deal on airport transfers. 

His ideal next step would be to click “ADD”, pay for it and voila! It’s done. 

But now, on his day of arrival, he is even more intrigued about the additional services your property has in store. 

So, what's next? 

Introducing, “In-stay Hotel Upselling”. 

Unlike pre-arrival upselling, it’s the most crucial and effective strategy that could make or break your upselling game. 

Excited to know more? Let’s begin!

What is in-stay hotel upselling and why is it important?

In-stay upselling is the second and the most impactful window you get to promote your services during your guest's stay

But here is the best part: With the best guest management platform, perfect upselling strategy, and minimal staff intervention — you can remarkably transform your upselling game.

Wonder how? Read on…

Importance and key benefits of in-stay upselling

  • Allows guests to customise and enhance their stay throughout: Unlike calling the front desk staff each time and requesting for a service. Guests can now customise their stay on their device conveniently, with just a few clicks. 
  • Generates additional revenue for the hotel: Room revenue is not enough to cover all the hotel overhead expenses such as utilities, labour costs maintenance, etc. Ancillary revenue not only helps cover the cost but also generates an added profit margin.
  • Builds brand and guest loyalty: Showing genuine interest in enhancing your guest's stay makes them feel valued, thereby considerably impacting your brand and guest loyalty. 

Here is a use case of the significance of upselling:

With the adoption of cloud solutions and effective upselling, IHG Hotels and Resorts was able to achieve an average night room revenue of $18 across their Essential and Suite brands and $40 for Luxury & Lifestyle.

What makes in-stay upselling different from pre-arrival upselling?

In simple terms, pre-arrival upselling is a quick nudge given to your guests about your services before their arrival. Whereas upselling at the in-stay stage comprises of your upsell promotions throughout their stay.

But most importantly, what makes in-stay different from pre-arrival is that in-stay upselling relies more on real-time data and guest behaviour while pre-arrival relies on presumptive offers based on the guest’s profile. Nonetheless, both strategies are essential and play a huge part in driving conversions and building brand and guest loyalty.

How does guest behaviour influence spending decisions once they’ve checked in?

Unlike at the pre-arrival stage, wherein guests virtually browse through your hotel offers. What truly influences your guest's spending decisions once they’ve checked in is the ability to examine your hotel services in person. 

Moreover, to further enhance your guests' experience and drive conversion, your staff can assess your guest's needs directly and persuade them to take action.

In fact, with the convenience of placing an order themselves by using self-service technology, guests are likely to spend 20% more at the in-stay stage.

6 Top In-Stay Hotel Upselling Techniques

In this section, let’s explore the importance and implementation strategy of the 6 In-stay hotel upsell techniques.

Importance of each of the 6 in-stay hotel upselling techniques

  • Room Service and Add-On Amenities: Offering discounted room upgrades and hotel amenities increases your sales and lets your guests enhance their stay by just paying a little extra. 
  • Workshops: Suggesting spa, wellness or fitness packages is a great way to attract health-conscious guests and boost your ancillary revenue. 
  • On-Site Dining Specials or Upgraded Menus: In-house dining lets the guest avoid stepping out of your hotel and explore the various meal options your in-house restaurant has to offer. 
  • Extended Stay Offers on Discounts: Certain guest profiles might require a 1-2 day extension to their stay. Offering discounts might persuade them to immediately grab the offer. 
  • Exclusive Access to Events or VIP Services: Luxury travellers or families travelling with kids or senior citizens might need private time for themselves and won’t mind paying extra for it. 
  • Private Excursions or Transportation Services: A few guests might prefer private transfer services who don’t intend to join a group and want to enjoy exclusivity. 

Implementation of the techniques  

Refer to the tabular format for a quick overview of the hotel upselling ideas and it's respective guest profile along with upselling hotel examples.

Also read: Want to drive exceptional ancillary revenue? Explore an exhaustive list of 12 hotel upselling techniques that are sure to get you the desired results. 

How to Track & Optimize In-Stay Upselling?

To get the best results out of your upselling process, you must focus on tracking and optimising your strategy. But how does it work?

Let’s understand the process with the help of key performance indicators. 

1. Open rate metric: 

  • Track: Asses the open rate metric or click-through rates to determine which offers were enticing for the guest to view them. 
  • Optimise: Use this metric to assess the low-performing campaigns. Revamp them with enticing discounts, visually appealing images, descriptions, etc. 

2. Conversion rate metric: 

  • Track: Review the conversion metric to evaluate the number of guests who availed of your service. 
  • Optimise: Evaluate what worked for the highest revenue-generating campaign and use it to redo the other strategies. 

3. Performance metric: 

  • Track: Evaluate which upselling communication is performing better and which ones aren’t. 
  • Optimise: Increase the frequency of the highest-performing campaign to boost revenue. 

4. Time preference: 

  • Track: Check out the ideal time frame or the best time to trigger the upsell service.
  • Optimise: Based on the data, set a timeline to trigger each campaign to achieve a higher open and conversion rate.

5. Revenue metric: 

  • Track: Analyse the revenue generated from each of the upselling strategies within a specified period, i.e. monthly, quarterly, or yearly. 
  • Optimise: Use this metric and strategically modify your prices to increase hotel sales and profitability. 

To conclude, here’s a statistic that shows how technology can help you achieve optimal results. 

As per Oracle and Skift’s Hospitality Industry Trends Report 2025, nearly 51.5 % of hotel executives plan to use analytics and artificial intelligence to learn about guests’ behaviours and offer more personalized marketing and advertisements. Whereas, 48.3 % intend to use the technology to personalize customer service before and during their trip.

What can you upsell at the In-stay stage for a higher conversion rate? 

Upselling at the in-stay stage requires you to consider a few factors such as your guest profile, and the duration of their stay. But a few factors remain constant such as the services you have to offer, both on-site and offsite. 

Hence, to make it easier, we have curated a list of offers that can be catered to both limited-service and premium hotels. We suggest you customise and add more points to the list.

For limited-service hotels:

 

For premium hotels: 

How can Guestara help you automate in-stay hotel upselling?

Revenue fluctuations are a common challenge that most hoteliers face. Hence, in order to sustain your hospitality business amidst the several factors affecting it. You must incorporate the best hotel upselling software to maintain a steady flow of additional revenue.

Check out Guestara — an AI Guest management platform that offers industry-led hotel upsell features and guest engagement solutions. It will not only help you effectively drive revenue but also enhance guest experience and loyalty. Read on to know how…

Customise your in-stay upsell menu to meet guest expectations 

Guestara hotel upsell tool lets you seamlessly customise upselling at the in-stay stage. Most importantly, you have total control over how you want to upsell services to drive optimum results. 

For instance, you can manage your inventory in real-time by adding and removing items based on their availability. Save time by temporarily removing the item by switching the toggle off and making it reappear just by switching it back on. 

Guestara Customized Upsell Menue

Automate upselling through our Guest Engagement Tool 

Worried about missing out on an upsell opportunity? Guestara Engagement Feature ensures you don't miss out on anything by helping you personalise and automate your in-stay upsell offers to boost revenue.

Whether it's in-room dining service, guided tour, spa packages, etc., the tool lets you provide tailored upsell offers based on your guest's profile. Select an upsell template, guest communication channel and preferred time to optimise your upsell strategy.

Allow guests to send requests using our Guest App with ease

What's better than letting your guests plan their stay with just a few clicks? Guestara's Guest App offers an engaging digital experience by letting your guests browse through a wide range of your hotel services. 

Whether it's exclusive meal arrangements, excursions or other add-on options. Your guests can browse, select, and instantly be notified about the status of their request. You just have to share a link with your guests to the integrated Guest App and let them have a seamless experience.

Guestara Guest App

View and manage requests on the Task Board of the Guestara Tool 

Get a quick overview of requests in one single place with the help of Guestara’s Task Board feature. Boost your operational efficiency by letting your staff track, schedule and coordinate the upsell requests among your department. 

Moreover, the Task Board feature enhances better coordination among your departments, thereby improving your delivery time and service quality.  

Set and track SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) to streamline the process 

Want to maximise operational efficiency while maintaining service quality, but no idea how to? Setting Standard Operating Procedures for your staff is the only way forward to sustaining a quality benchmark.

As an owner or a hotel manager, you must SOPs, i.e. define quality standards and service delivery timelines for all your upsell services. You get notified instantly If a service gets delayed or is at a subpar level, prompting immediate action.  

Track the overall performance and revenue generated on Guestara’s Dashboard

Want to quickly get an overview of your in-stay hotel upselling strategies? Check out Guestara’s Upsell Analytics Feature which lets you effortlessly track your open rates, conversion rates, revenue metric, etc. 

It also highlights your best-performing upselling items and campaigns with pie charts, graphs, lists, etc. This can be further used to optimise the strategies that are working and discard the ones that are not. 

Upselling analytics dashboard

Closing Thoughts

Upselling in hospitality industry is not just an option, it’s now become a prerequisite. Hence, If you want to stay ahead of the game, you must streamline and optimise your entire upsell process with the help of AI-powered guest management software. 

Are you ready to explore? Book your personalised demo today!

Yashika Karkera
Senior Content Writer
Subscribe to our newsletter
Read about our privacy policy.
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.

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