Upselling enabled: How Iberostar Hotels & Resorts integrated ancillary sales into the pre-arrival stage with Oaky

REVENUE MANAGEMENT

Iberostar Hotels & Resorts is a leading hotel chain that’s committed to developing a responsible tourism model, focused on caring for both guests and the environment. With over 100 four- and five-star hotels, they cater to mid- to high-end leisure travelers who value sustainability and look for a high level of service and exclusive experiences. Most of their properties are located in coastal, resort-style destinations across Europe, Africa, and Americas, reinforcing their focus on leisure travel.

Why it matters: With a wide variety of exclusive amenities and facilities, the Iberostar team realized they were missing out on ancillary sales at the pre-arrival stage. As such, guests had little to no opportunity to enrich their stay. Integrating ancillary sales into pre-arrival operations became a key goal for the Iberostar team.

To date, they’ve rolled out Oaky at 51 hotels worldwide for pre-arrival upselling. They began with pilot programs at the end of 2023 and, after seeing strong results, expanded Oaky’s implementation to more properties. Here’s how the hotels leverage Oaky today to communicate ancillaries in a personalized and seamless way.

Top 3 Core Objectives: Iberostar was missing out on ancillary revenue opportunities due to the absence of upselling technology. They were looking for ways to enhance the guest experience and increase hotel revenue during the pre-arrival stage.

Scale pre-arrival upselling: As Iberostar didn’t have any upselling tech in place, their guests were unaware of what else in addition to a room they could get to enrich their guest experience. On top of that, there was no centralized system in place to ensure that these were presented to guests at the right time pre-arrival. As such, they struggled to give the different hotels in their chain more control over what they offer to guests before they arrive.
Maximize revenue opportunities: The inability to proactively sell ancillaries led to underutilized room upgrades and services. Relying solely on front desk upselling wasn’t enough to drive profitability.
Reduce dependency on OTAs: Ancillary services are one of Iberostar’s unique selling points. It sets their direct channel apart as you can’t book these deals through any other channel, helping to reduce dependency on third-party channels. To do this, they needed a tool to not only enhance guest engagement but also generate more revenue from their own channel, minimizing dependency on third-party distribution channels (OTAs).

Innovators Mentioned

Iberostar Hotels & Resorts

Oaky by Plusgrade

Juan Serna

Global Online Sales, Head of Digital Ancillary

Iberostar Hotels & Resorts

Pere Estela

Global Ancillary Director

Iberostar Hotels & Resorts

"The pre-stay phase is a crucial moment in our guest journey, especially considering that the entire guest journey typically spans around 90 days. About 20 days before arrival, guests naturally start thinking more about their upcoming holiday, making this the ideal time to send tailored upsell offers. At this stage, their bookings are complete and paid for, and they’re often ready to spend more on added deals and services. This is where Oaky comes in, ensuring that room upgrades and offers are presented to the right guests in a personalized way at just the right moment to enhance their stay."

Juan Serna

Global Online Sales, Head of Digital Ancillary

👍 Global Online Sales, Head of Digital Ancillary Juan Serna said that Oaky’s intuitive platform, including the service and price setup options, simplifies the customization of offers and prices:

"The pre-stay phase is a crucial moment in our guest journey, especially considering that the entire guest journey typically spans around 90 days. About 20 days before arrival, guests naturally start thinking more about their upcoming holiday, making this the ideal time to send tailored upsell offers. At this stage, their bookings are complete and paid for, and they’re often ready to spend more on added deals and services. This is where Oaky comes in, ensuring that room upgrades and offers are presented to the right guests in a personalized way at just the right moment to enhance their stay."

⚖️ The selection process: During their research process, Pere Estela 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:

Global Ancillary Director Pere Estela said, about their decision: "Our main focus was generating revenue, but at the same time it was improving the guest experience through the pre-arrival moment of the booking process and differentiating our direct channel from other competitors, especially OTAs, to strengthen our market share and customer loyalty."

📈 The results: With Oaky, Iberostar hotels established an automated and consistent process of selling ancillaries pre-arrival. Having a centralized system enabled the teams across multiple Iberostar properties to set up engaging deals and upgrades to be upsold to the right guests and at the right moments of the guest journey.

The ability to communicate offerings pre-arrival keeps guest engagement high and differentiates Iberostar’s direct channel. Oaky's pre-arrival messages have kept an average email open rate of 88% across all Iberostar properties.
Presenting personalized and engaging upsells in the pre-arrival stage has turned out to be beneficial for revenue results. Iberostar Selection Jardin del Sol Suites has achieved an ROI of 39.3 on average between January 1, 2024, and September 30, 2024 (with the highest ROI of 57 and 61 measured in July and August respectively). Iberostar Waves Alcudia Park has generated an ROI of 22.4 on average while Iberostar Selection Albufera Park has an ROI of 20 on average.
In the past, Iberostar hotels faced upsell constraints as the front-desk teams didn’t have enough time at check-in to explain all their deals. Now, with Oaky, it’s like having an extra set of hands, giving hotels the resources they need to upsell practically anything—not just select deals. For example, thanks to Oaky, Iberostar properties in Mexico and the Dominican Republic are now able to capitalize effectively on sun beds—something they couldn’t sell as effectively before implementing Oaky.