Clio O’Gara, Country Manager, Access Hospitality looks at where she sees hotels leaving money on the table
Every hotelier I speak to knows the OTA commission maths off the top of their head, with 15-25% gone before a single towel has been folded. It’s exactly why direct bookers matter more than any dashboard shows you. But after enough of these conversations, I’ve realised the real gap between an OTA guest and a direct guest isn’t the commission at all. It’s what happens after the booking is made.
To be transparent, OTAs are a necessary evil. We need their reach none of us could buy on our own and let them bring the guest to your door. But your best offers, the ones that actually make the stay better and make you more money, belong on your own website, where the transaction happens direct and you own the relationship from the first click.
That’s where good upselling starts by knowing which guest you’re talking to and build your best moments around the ones who booked with you directly.
The moments I see hotels miss
If you ask me where hotels leave money on the table, it’s rarely the big obvious wins. It’s the quiet gaps.
Handling the pre-payment gives you the space to upsell before the guest ever arrives, so automate it. Don’t leave it to the reception team as it isn’t natural to them, and it’s not what you want them spending their morning doing. Room upgrades, a gift waiting in the room, a spa experience or a table already booked for dinner are these are the upsells guests expect to be offered.
A guest who’s already paid for the room is already in the holiday money pocket. They’ve made their big decision and what’s left is smaller, easier spending. It lands better before arrival than it ever will at the check-in stage when a guest might be tired, hungry and thinking about finding their room, not choosing a bottle of wine.
Ireland’s calendar is already doing the work
Six Nations weekends, GAA finals, bank holidays, the summer run of American visitors are all natural demand peaks for most of the year. My advice is to use every one of them, not just for room rate, but for everything built around the stay. A packed Saturday during a Six Nations weekend could also be a full dining room, a busy bar and even a guest who came for the match and might stay the extra night, if the offer is there when they book.
Why personalisation changes everything
It’s all about looking at the data that’s in front of you rather than guesswork, and I don’t put that down to any one factor. It’s about timing, personalisation and the offer itself. The guest is already in that holiday-spending mindset before you’ve asked them for anything else. Get all three right and the upsell feels like you already knew what they wanted.
One guest journey, not multiple phone calls
This booking journey for the guest has been long awaited. With Booking Engine+, everything is done in one journey by the guest with one confirmation, one itinerary, all in one place. It’s a game changer for the guest and for the hotel. No more relying on someone to remember the anniversary bottle of Prosecco. The booking, the extras and the confirmation happen together, at the exact moment the guest is most ready to spend.
Getting it wrong is worse than not trying
I’ll be honest about the moment this became real for me. The first time I saw upsells built into GuestStay, I thought, how am I meant to run around a hotel with a bottle of wine at 7pm if a guest booked late?
It turned out the answer had already been solved. Every upsell can be tied to staffing levels, lead times and stock. Flowers might only be offered from three days before arrival, because that’s what the local florist can manage. Extra beds simply stop appearing as an option once the last one is booked. Smart limits, not guesswork, are what keep an upsell feeling like great service rather than an overpromise.
Where it all comes together
None of this needs a bigger team or a longer working day. It needs the booking, the guest data and the offer sitting in one place, talking to each other, before the guest even checks in. That’s what I see change for a hotel once its bookings, guest profiles and upsells run on one property management suite, instead of being stitched together when it’s too late.
By Clio O’Gara Access Hospitality
Find out more about Access Hospitality’s Booking Engine+
