Five Ways To Make Revenue Beyond Hotel Rooms

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The travel and hospitality sector has undoubtedly been impacted heavily by the pandemic. Yet, it has shown great resilience as operators have been forced to think differently and how to optimise every square space and service, here are 5 ways to make revenue beyond room nights with services, products and experiences – or a combination of all...

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The travel and hospitality sector has undoubtedly been impacted heavily by the pandemic. Yet, it has shown great resilience as operators have been forced to think differently and how to optimise every square space and service, versus room revenue. In meeting today’s arising customer needs with demands coming from domestic guests, hotels have encompassed a range of services, products, experiences – or a combination package of all - to generate revenue beyond the hotel rooms. There’s never been a better time to offer non-room products and services until now.

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Here are five ways on how to be resourceful to maximise all revenue streams:

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1. Custom F&B experiences

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Restaurant closures and limited dining capacities may shut off the physical dining experience, but that does not necessarily mean this cannot transverse into guests’ hotel rooms or customer’s homes. Many hotels have replicated the afternoon tea experience with a takeaway set for customers to enjoy at the comfort of their own homes. Say goodbye to old school menus and concierge calls, but provide room service through an online ordering system instead. Selling F&B options direct to consumers can also save you the 30% delivery commission with food ordering platforms and the flexibility to collect from the premise.  

You can also go beyond listing the menu by allowing customers to customise their order and food options to fully translate the five-star experience through the screen. Additionally, if it’s a branded tea set collaboration, take the opportunity to offer add-ons by extending the dining experience with merchandise.

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2. Become a direct-to-consumer retailer

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From the pillows to the robes, let your customers take a piece of their hotel stay back home, with a personalised touch. Offer customisation whether it's monogramming or other variations possible to make that piece special. If working with selected brands for toiletries, furniture pieces and others, stock and sell partner’s goods while earning a commission from their sales. Having used the products in-room and seeing them in live placement can deliver a higher conversion rate. Additionally, drive direct bookings and earn the full margin on own brand.com site instead.

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3. Curate a local marketplace

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Aside from selling your own hotel amenities, onboard third-party vendors to curate your own marketplace to showcase local highlights and businesses that resonate with your brand and city. This can include locally crafted goods and food vendors to portray an authentic taste in town. Working with other brands is not only seen as just another revenue channel but can broaden your exposure to their audience, which your hotel may not typically attract. Because hotel websites already have a high existing online traffic with long dwell time on pages due to reviewing hotel amenities, features, bookings etc., operators should capitalise on the active audience to market other goods for sale to promote its branding. You can also utilise any vacant space in the hotel to create a physical marketplace to rent out to vendors while attracting footfall from outside and hotel guests to drive spend.

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4. Design exclusive experiences

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Experiences have overtaken materialistic gifts and are in demand more than ever especially due to travel restrictions. Offer gift vouchers of fixed experiences for guests and customers to gift to loved ones. Aside from the standard spa offerings, build unique experiences and tap into key moments to capture local interest (e.g. Father's Day staycation). Utilise existing services within the hotel to create new experiences such as wine tasting, personal cooking classes and the likes. Bring in external parties such as local gyms and personal trainers to host activities and events to draw interest. Alternatively, allow customers to piece and build their own experience package, or offer gift cards in monetary value for the end-user to freely spend their credits on whatever they want.

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5. Build a community hub

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Provide hospitality services to locals other than just lodging. Where hotel services used to be reserved for in-house guests, operators can also choose to open up their services and amenities to local residents as a way of becoming a community hub. For example, use “Space as a Service” concept to leverage existing assets into accessible amenities for the public (e.g. marketplace rentals, conference room rental by the hour) or even more innovatively, turn vacant rooms into a “Workation”, where guests can book a room for the day as a mobile office, in the trend of remote working. As staff are well equipped with local knowledge, utilise their talents to convert hotel stays into a destination hub for the community.

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Conclusion

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The only way to weather through is to find ways to diversify offerings to meet today’s ever-changing times. Adapt to the evolving consumer needs and shift from room revenue mentality to total revenue-based goals, but make sure you have the right tools to support these initiatives.

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In the above examples, many hotels have branched out with a separate online boutique aside from their main website, but this can cause fractured data points and making it difficult to consolidate finances. It is more than just simply listing services offerings online, but must be able to provide customisation capabilities and connect different department offerings into one view.

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What we can do

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At Techsembly, we’ve built a solution designed for hospitality needs, enabling a platform that can unify multi-department offerings to nurture collaboration and provide holistic data. Track non-room revenue and turn data into insights, understand the impact on strategies and empower future decisions.

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Our Enterprise solution can help translate your five-star experience online by allowing customers to fully tailor their experience and services to their liking. Curate your own online marketplace and give regional teams separate control and access to the commerce platform to fully localise offerings. Tailor products, promotion and content to celebrate different occasions on separate storefronts in respect to everyone’s culture.

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Techsembly’s platform is easy to use, easy to edit, no developers needed and armed with full support from the team to help build a seamless customer journey from online to offline.

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Reinvent your hotel and convert one night stays into a repeated lifestyle destination hub for your fans today.

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Additional read: The Peninsula Hotels centralised e-commerce solution