The holidays are one of the most emotional times of the year for travelers. Guests arrive with high expectations for family reunions, once a year celebrations, treat yourself getaways and milestone moments. At the same time, your operating costs are higher, your team is stretched and competition for share of wallet is intense.
For hotels, the festive season is no longer just about filling rooms. It is about maximizing total revenue per guest and per visit. A smart upsell strategy can turn a fully booked period into a highly profitable one, without compromising guest experience.
In this guide, we look at how to build a modern holiday upselling strategy, and how Duve’s personalized upsell platform helps hotels monetize every touchpoint, from pre arrival planning to guests of guests and locals.
1. Start with a holiday revenue plan, not just a campaign
Before you create festive packages or design creative emails, step back and define what you are trying to achieve. A clear plan makes every upsell feel intentional rather than random.
Every property has its own festive calendar. Some hotels see huge demand around Christmas and New Year’s Eve. Others rely more on Hanukkah, local winter festivals or big city events. Start by mapping your season and understanding where upselling should drive yield and where it should drive volume.
Then turn that into clear upsell goals. Instead of “sell more extras”, decide what success looks like and which ancillary revenue metrics matter to you.
What to define in your holiday revenue plan
- Key dates and demand patterns: which dates will sell out anyway, and which need a boost from upselling.
- KPIs for success: for example, percentage of bookings with at least one upsell, ancillary revenue per room night, or share of revenue from non room products such as spa, parking or experiences.
- A focused offer hierarchy:
- Hero festive offers such as a New Year’s Eve dinner or Christmas package.
- Festive twists on evergreen services such as breakfast, transfers or spa access.
- Low friction add ons like welcome amenities or kids activity kits that are easy to say yes to.
Once this is clear, every offer you design has a role in the bigger picture.
2. Design holiday offers for each stage of the guest journey
The most effective upsell strategies follow the guest from booking to check out and beyond. During the holidays, the guest journey is full of emotional moments where the right offer feels like part of the experience, not an extra sale.
Pre arrival: turn bookings into curated festive stays
The upsell journey should begin as soon as a reservation is made. At this point guests are still in planning mode. They are researching what to do, coordinating with others and imagining their stay.
This is the ideal moment to position upgrades and add ons that turn a basic booking into a holiday experience.
Pre arrival upsell ideas
- Festive upgrades: rooms with better views for fireworks, larger suites for families or connecting rooms for multi generational trips.
- Stress free travel bundles: early check in and late check out around peak dates so guests can relax instead of watching the clock.
- Seasonal amenities: in room decorations, festive turndown, kids holiday packs or sparkling wine on arrival.
- Logistics and convenience: airport transfers, guaranteed parking or shuttle services to Christmas markets and events.
With Duve’s personalized upsell platform, these offers can be triggered automatically after booking. The system uses stay dates, room type, party composition and preferences gathered during online check in to present a curated set of relevant options instead of a generic list.
In stay: capture spontaneous festive spending
Once guests arrive, their priorities shift. They see the hotel, feel the atmosphere and often make more spontaneous decisions about how to spend their time and budget. This is where in stay upsells can directly shape the guest experience.
In stay upsell ideas
- F&B highlights: Christmas menus, festive afternoon tea, mulled wine on the terrace, New Year’s Eve gala dinners or family style sharing platters.
- Experiences and activities: cookie decorating classes, kids clubs, Santa visits, live music or holiday movie nights.
- Wellness moments: winter spa rituals, couples treatments or a “recovery brunch plus late check out” on 1 January.
- Practical offers: laundry bundles for longer stays or a targeted late check out prompt the day before departure.
Duve supports these moments with in stay upsell cards in the branded Guest App and digital menus for F&B. Guests can browse and book from their own devices, without calling reception. Because the platform uses guest data and segmentation, families see child friendly options, while couples are guided toward romantic dining or spa experiences.
Post stay: turn holiday guests into repeat business
The emotional high of a successful festive break is a powerful driver of future business. If you keep the conversation going after check out, you can turn one great holiday stay into a longer term relationship.
Post stay revenue opportunities
- Gift vouchers and digital gifting for spa, dining or future stays that guests can send to friends and family.
- Pre booking next year’s holidays with early access to your best rooms, rates or festive packages.
- Loyalty style perks for guests who engaged heavily with ancillaries, such as early access to new experiences or special events.
Because Duve can orchestrate post stay communication as part of the same journey, these touchpoints can be automated and personalized, so they feel helpful instead of generic.
3. Personalize upsells with data instead of guesswork
Holiday travelers are not one segment. A family of five arriving on 23 December, a couple flying in on New Year’s Eve and a local spa day guest all have different needs. Personalization is what turns an upsell from noise into relevance.
Start with basic segmentation. Use PMS and booking data to distinguish families, couples, solo travelers and remote workers. Separate domestic drive market guests from international visitors, and pay attention to repeat guests versus first timers. You might also want to treat direct bookers differently from OTA bookers.
Then add behavioral and preference signals on top: purpose of stay, special occasions, pet requests, language and preferred channels.
Data points that power better holiday upsells
- Purpose of stay: leisure, celebration, business plus family, etc.
- Special occasions: anniversaries, honeymoons, birthdays or festive family reunions.
- Pet and room requests: a natural trigger for pet amenities or welcome gifts.
- Channel and language: tailor how and where you talk to each guest.
With Duve’s segmentation and analytics, you can build different upsell journeys for different guest types and let the platform automatically show the right offer at the right moment, without endless manual lists and filters.
4. Get timing and channels right so offers actually land
Even the best offer can fail if it shows up at the wrong time or in the wrong channel. During the holidays, timing and delivery are just as important as the content itself.
A simple festive upsell timeline might start with a design your holiday stay flow shortly after booking, move into higher value experiences a week before arrival, then focus on timely in stay prompts and a few smart post stay touchpoints.
A simple festive upsell timeline
- Right after booking: core upgrades, breakfast, parking and key services that shape the stay.
- Seven to three days before arrival: New Year’s Eve dinners, spa rituals, kids clubs and activities once plans are clearer.
- Day of arrival: early check in, welcome amenities or first night dinner packages.
- During the stay: F&B specials, spa availability for the next day and late check out offers.
Channel choice matters too. The same guest might see pre arrival upsells by email, browse options in a web based Guest App that works on any device, and receive WhatsApp or SMS nudges for last minute offers.
Duve centralizes these touchpoints in one communication hub, so guests experience a consistent journey and staff do not have to juggle multiple tools. Automation ensures upsells are triggered by booking events, dates and behaviors, and Duve’s AI capabilities can handle routine questions so teams can focus on in person service.
The guiding principle is simple: every message should feel like helpful guidance, not pressure. For example, “Make your New Year’s morning easier with late check out and brunch” is an offer wrapped in value.
5. Go beyond overnight guests and tap into guests of guests and locals
Many hotels think only about people who sleep in their rooms when they plan upselling. During the holidays, this leaves a lot of untapped revenue.
As Duve explains in its article on ancillary revenue streams for hotels, properties already host a wide variety of non staying audiences: spa visitors, restaurant and bar guests, corporate groups, wedding parties and locals who just need parking or a place to gather.
These people are already in your building, enjoying your spaces. They just need frictionless ways to buy more.
Non staying audiences you can upsell
- Spa day visitors who would happily add treatments, refreshments or access to other facilities.
- Restaurant and bar guests attending festive dinners, drinks or parties.
- Corporate and event attendees who might upgrade their experience with add ons.
- Locals and shoppers who need parking, a base between activities or family friendly experiences.
With Duve’s upsell capabilities and the approach outlined in the ancillary revenue article, hotels can create digital journeys that do not require a room booking. Day visitors and walk ins can scan a QR code in the lobby, spa or restaurant and land on a branded page where they can browse services, purchase passes and book experiences.
This beyond the room mindset is particularly valuable during the festive period, when locals are actively searching for seasonal experiences but do not necessarily want a full hotel stay.
6. Make holiday upselling sustainable for your team
A great upsell strategy is only truly successful if your team can deliver it. In the busiest season of the year, operational reality matters as much as creativity.
Start by coordinating with operations. Align on capacity for spa, restaurants, events and kids activities on key dates. Confirm cut off times for early check in, late check out and same day services. Agree on any blackout periods where certain offers should not be available.
Then translate those constraints into rules inside your upsell engine, so the system respects what your team can realistically handle.
How to protect your team while you upsell
- Align on capacity and cut offs: know how many covers, treatments and activities you can deliver each day.
- Build rules into your upsell setup: automatically hide certain offers on high pressure dates or once thresholds are reached.
- Connect upsells to operations: ensure purchases flow into the PMS and task tools so housekeeping, F&B and spa teams see what has been sold.
By using Duve as a central layer for guest facing operations, from online check in to upsells, communication and digital ordering, holiday offers become part of the normal workflow. Front desk and reservations see clear summaries of what each guest has purchased, and finance teams can track ancillary revenue by category and campaign without manual spreadsheets.
7. Turn holiday wins into a year round upselling strategy
The festive period is an intense, data rich test of your upsell strategy. If you capture and use those insights, you can improve not only next year’s holidays, but every seasonal campaign that follows.
Track basic metrics such as uptake rate per offer, ancillary revenue per booking, the contribution of non staying visitors, and performance by channel. Then look for patterns: which offers resonate with which segments, and which combinations create the most value.
How to learn from your holiday upsells
- Measure what matters: uptake rates, revenue per room night, share of revenue from ancillaries and from non staying guests.
- Test and compare: bundled festive arrival packages versus separate amenities, different images and headlines, or “limited spots” language for high demand events.
- Reuse what works: convert your best performing holiday upsells into evergreen offers for Easter, summer or local events.
With Duve’s analytics, you can compare performance across campaigns and channels, and build a repeatable framework for designing, testing and scaling new revenue streams throughout the year.
Conclusion: holiday upselling that feels like hospitality
Holiday upselling is not about squeezing as much money as possible out of your guests. When it is done well, it is a way to design stays that feel effortless, meaningful and memorable, while making sure your hotel gets full value from its busiest season.
The core ingredients are simple:
- A clear holiday revenue plan with realistic goals.
- A small set of well designed offers mapped to each stage of the guest journey.
- Personalization based on data, not guesswork.
- Smart timing and channel choice so offers land when they are most relevant.
- A beyond the room mindset that includes guests of guests and locals.
- Integrated operations that keep things smooth for staff.
Duve’s personalized upsell platform and its focus on ancillary revenue beyond the room are built to support exactly this approach. With the right strategy, you can turn seasonal demand into sustainable revenue without compromising the guest experience.
About the author
The Duve team comprises hospitality experts specializing in guest experience personalization, operational optimization, and innovative hotel technologies. With deep industry knowledge, they help hospitality providers elevate service, enhance satisfaction, and drive growth.