58-unit business hotel: five categories, 26 bookable products
Updated: 4 days ago
58 rooms and apartments, 5 PMS categories — 26 ways to sell them. A good reservations agent sells the same room differently to different guests. GauVendi does that on the website, automatically. The rooms don't change; the pitch does.
On average, around €7 more for every direct online booking
Per 100 bookings in the same direct online channel:
Sales mix: 78 individualised feature or experience products · 22 plain categories.
19 of those 78 product bookings were above the relevant category price. At an average premium of around €25 on those bookings, the room-feature premium totalled around €481.
Additional-service upselling on individualised product bookings generated €217 more than additional-service upselling on comparable category bookings. Together with the room-feature premium: around €697 in additional premiums per 100 bookings.
Regular category upgrades and the usual sales of additional services come on top of these premiums.
A room or an apartment that fits the trip
Guests actively chose between a room and an apartment in 21% of bookings where the type-of-space feature was available. Layout also influenced their choices.
What solo travellers booked
Quiet locations, corner rooms, proximity to the lift and hill views each appeared around 100% more often in solo travellers' bookings than in the average booking. These patterns give the hotel specific details to highlight for its business guests.
Groups accounted for 7.6% of bookings in the guest analysis and booked 59 days ahead on average. That gives the hotel another audience it can address well before arrival.
Room preferences without a manual allocation list
An agent who sells room 12 as 'garden view' to one guest and 'next to the lift' to another still has one room 12. Every product draws on the same physical rooms and shares their availability. Availability and smart room assignment run automatically. Assignment is included and respects the booked features. More products add no manual inventory or assignment work. This city hotel uses apaleo.
A business traveller can book a recommendation directly or specify a preference that matters. The preference becomes part of the bookable product rather than another request for reception to arrange.
Price guest preferences and flexibility
Some business travellers will pay more to secure a quiet room. You set the price for that choice. Guests who leave you more freedom in room assignment can book at a lower price. Pricing becomes a way to earn more, retain operational flexibility and deliver the stay each guest values.
Giving guests choices they cannot find in a standard category listing creates a reason to book directly. Bookable preferences also save calls to reservations and reception. This property's online direct-booking share has at least doubled compared with the period before GauVendi.
Two questions for your IBE or CRS comparison
“How much additional premium do your customers earn per online booking from room features and increased additional-service sales, beyond their usual upselling?”
“What is your average look-to-book conversion rate, and how do you calculate it?”
Ask for both figures, the booking sample and the calculation. That shows what the technology actually delivers in sales.
Source: GauVendi Business Intelligence. Premiums are averaged across all online bookings analysed and expressed per booking and per 100 bookings for comparability.
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