Attribute-based Upselling: How to Maximize Hotel Revenues
Did you know that travelers’ needs are among the top factors influencing accommodation decisions?
According to Finance Online, 39% of travelers say that their personal needs played a vital role in making a booking decision. It’s precisely why the hospitality industry places great hopes in the attribute-based selling model (ABS).
Let’s take a closer look at ABS and how to maximize hotel revenue by implementing it.
What is ABS
Attribute-based upselling is a brand new buzz in the world of hospitality. It brings much-needed transformation to the process of how the hotel rooms are generally sold. At the moment, it’s a top-down process.
For instance, not all rooms in a single room type category have the same attributes. They cost the same, but some have breathtaking views, while others make it more convenient to access amenities.
ABS takes all hotel services and unbundles them into smaller units. The ABS driven room selling practice enables guests to apply more filters when they are searching and book a room that reflects their personal needs. Unlike selling by room categories, the ABS process is customer-centric.
The Current State of ABS
The hospitality industry is making its first steps towards moving their sales process away from selling by room to ABS. However, the ABS distribution system is not a new invention. Some industries have been using it for two decades now and saw a significant increase in revenue.
Take the airline industry, for instance. It pioneered ABS back in the late 90s. Customers were allowed to buy extras in addition to the ticket cost, which only buys a seat on a plane. According to Statista, ancillary revenue in the airline industry in 2019 amounted to a staggering 109.5 billion U.S. dollars.
How UpStay is Better Using ABS
There are some concerns about implementing ABS in the hospitality industry. By breaking services into smaller chunks, potential guests will have to choose from dozens of different room type options. It can confuse the guests and potentially negatively impact booking conversion.
How to maximize hotel revenue and still benefit from the perks ABS distribution system offers? UpStay can help you achieve it hassle-free. It leverages guest segmentation and data from across the industry to automatically offer each guest a single set of the most fitting attributes for them, resolving any potential for Paradox of Choice.
Hundreds of 4 and 5-star hotels worldwide are already using UpStay to deliver a delightful experience to their guests. It puts ABS to smart use focusing strictly on value proposition and upselling upgrades post-booking, pre-arrival.
The best thing about it is that UpStay works completely automatically. Once a guest books a room, the system sends a personalized offer, and guests can bid before they arrive at the hotel. This unique data-driven approach delivers high conversion rates and increases ancillary revenue.
Jonathan is a data science and software engineering wizard. He began his career in the Israeli NSA equivalent elite technology unit 8200, where he led a research and development team in high-performance computing and machine learning. In his last role, Jonathan served as a senior engineer at Gartner Innovation, leading there a core NLP and ML project. Studied Entrepreneurship and Business Administration at IDC Herzliya, Graduated with Honors.
