Upselling During a Pandemic: Early Check-In and Late Check-Out
Offer Type Requests Shift Based on Today’s Realities
Nor1, the global leader in hospitality upgrade, upsell, and merchandising technology, has dived into its buyer behavior data to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected guest demand for hotel upgrades. Now we're looking at guest upgrade buying behavior by upsell offer type. Offer types include configured room types, room attributes, and non-room inventory like amenities, or early check-in and late check-out.
By engaging the guest across the reservation lifecycle from booking through check-in, and by managing 1 million global hotel rooms, Nor1 has accumulated the largest set of guest/buyer behavior data in the hotel industry. That rich data set, unique to Nor1, shows us that guests traveling in September 2020 generally want the same type of upgrades as they did in September 2019.
"Reservation booking behavior has changed since the pandemic began. The booking window is much shorter, market demand has shifted away from urban areas to beaches and resorts, and from luxury to more midscale brands," says Jason G. Bryant, Founder and CEO of Nor1. "But we see fewer buying behavior changes for upgrades. The biggest is that globally, early check-in and late check-out requests have jumped by 13% and 34% respectively, which we believe reflects guests' desires to not wait in public spaces like hotel lobbies. The most requested offer type is still room type upgrades, for example, from a king standard to a king deluxe. Nor1's machine-learning based solutions will automatically serve offers with the highest probability of conversion, ensuring hotels can capture demand by guests for a customized stay, even now."
How can hotels act on this data?
- Make sure your offer set includes early check-in and late check-out. Guests are not as willing to relax or work in lobbies as they have been in the past
- If you have connecting rooms, consider offering an extra connecting room as an upsell offer, especially if the reservation indicates multiple guests
- An amenity, like a sealed bottle of wine, or a coffee kit, are attractive as the guest can enjoy it in their room
Property executives, front office managers, and revenue managers should focus on upselling revenue, even during low occupancy and low demand. Optimizing existing demand is a smart way to offset lower RevPAR that is the hotel industry's current reality.
Want to know more? Click here to see our previous findings about guest upsell demand.
With headquarters in Silicon Valley and offices across the world, including the US, Mexico, Singapore, and Germany, Nor1 services over 1 million rooms in more than 100 countries, in 50 currencies and 20 languages.
For more information, please contact us at [email protected], visit nor1.com, or see us on LinkedIn.
About Nor1, Inc.
On November 18, 2020, Oracle announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Nor1. The acquisition extends Oracle Hospitality's OPERA Cloud Suite by adding Nor1's Merchandising platform that enables hotels to provide personalized offers throughout the guest journey using AI & machine learning, thereby improving guest engagement, and driving incremental revenue and improved loyalty for hotels.
Nor1 is the leader in hospitality upgrade, up-sell, and merchandising technology. Headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices across the world, Nor1 provides data-driven pricing and merchandising products that maximize incremental revenues for Hilton, IHG, Radisson Hotel Group, Accor, Wyndham, and other global hotels and resorts. Nor1′s real-time pricing and merchandising intelligence engine, PRiME®, powers eStandby Upgrade®, eXpress Upgrade™, and CheckIn Merchandising™,to recommend the most relevant upgrade to the right guest at the right time for the most optimal price. For more information, please visit www.nor1.com, or contact us at [email protected].
Valyn Perini
Vice President, Partnerships and Marketing
