How Hard Rock Hotels creates a well-branded, memorable guest experience with pre-arrival upselling

REVENUE MANAGEMENT

With Oaky’s automated pre-stay upselling solution, Hard Rock Hotels around the world are able to fine-tune their guests’ experience while driving ancillary revenue.

Why it matters: Providing a unique and personalised guest experience inspired by legendary music is at the heart of the Hard Rock Hotels brand. Alexis Remy, VP of Revenue Management & Distribution at Hard Rock International, shared with us how he and his team have taken the brand’s core promise to the next level.

As Remy notes, “Whether people stay with us for business or leisure, we want it to be remarkable and authentic. The goal is to give them experiences that rock and keep elevating every touchpoint throughout the customer journey. Oaky is making it easier for our teams to achieve this goal. It allows us to provide the tailored experience our guests crave and expect from us.”

Top 3 Core Objectives: Hard Rock Hotels wanted to offer memorable experiences to their guests:

Creative approach to upselling: Flexibility for each hotel to design unique experiences and services while offering personalised deals to guests before arrival.
Tailored guest experience: Nowadays, personalisation is key to creating a memorable guest experience. There was a need to move away from mass communication where every guest is faced with the same deals.
Creating experiences that rock: Hard Rock Hotels aimed to offer memorable service and experiences which are rooted in music and reflect the mottos “all is one,” “love all, serve all,” and “save the planet.” Addressing the guests’ needs is the top priority that overshadows other goals such as increasing revenue.

Innovators Mentioned

Hard Rock International

Oaky by Plusgrade

Alexis Remy

VP Revenue Management & Distribution at Hard Rock International

Hard Rock International

"Oaky allows us to be creative and feature relevant and exciting offers to our guests. The solution is extremely flexible and easy to use, helping our teams to offer unique services and experiences by leveraging each property's attributes and the uniqueness of our brand. We have seen very strong results across all hotels with average open rates above 80%, far surpassing the benchmark for similar solutions in our industry. These results show us that our guests are genuinely interested in discovering what the hotel has to offer before they arrive. In addition our strong conversion rates indicate that our guests are willing to book add-ons that are relevant to them, address their needs and will enhance their experience and stay."

Alexis Remy

VP Revenue Management & Distribution at Hard Rock International

👍 VP Revenue Management & Distribution at Hard Rock International Alexis Remy said that Achieving higher open rates by appealing to guest needs via Oaky.:

"Oaky allows us to be creative and feature relevant and exciting offers to our guests. The solution is extremely flexible and easy to use, helping our teams to offer unique services and experiences by leveraging each property's attributes and the uniqueness of our brand. We have seen very strong results across all hotels with average open rates above 80%, far surpassing the benchmark for similar solutions in our industry. These results show us that our guests are genuinely interested in discovering what the hotel has to offer before they arrive. In addition our strong conversion rates indicate that our guests are willing to book add-ons that are relevant to them, address their needs and will enhance their experience and stay."

⚖️ The selection process: During their research process, Alexis Remy evaluated Oaky by Plusgrade's product differentiators, customer support, and holistic value as a strategic partner and ultimately decided that Oaky by Plusgrade was the best fit solution:

VP Revenue Management & Distribution at Hard Rock International Alexis Remy said, about their decision: "Oaky’s team inspired each hotel to design unique experiences and services. With other vendors, I had always felt limited in what we could do. Now it seems like possibilities are endless and we can offer our guests a vast variety of different experiences. That sets Oaky apart."

📈 The results: After rolling out Oaky, Hard Rock Hotels have seen email open rates far beyond the industry average leading to higher conversion rates while stimulating guest interest before coming to the property.

Average increase in monthly incremental revenue by 15%
Minimum email open rates of 80-85% and average click-through rate of 60%
Improved customer satisfaction due to reduced manual work and low rejection rates