Next-Level Guest Experiences: How to Boost Satisfaction & Revenue with AI, Upsells & Smart Comms 

To stand out as a short-term accommodation today, it isn’t enough to offer somewhere to stay. You need to offer an experience. 

84% of travelers now prioritize memorable experiences over low prices – showing that the demand for meaningful, personalized stays has never been higher. 

Here’s the good news: independent properties like yours are ideally placed to benefit from this trend. However, to give each guest a curated experience, you need the right technology in your corner. 

Read on to learn why guest experience is now the key differentiator – and how all-in-one technology helps you manage it end-to-end, from AI-powered messaging to flexible upselling. 

The guest experience is the result of every interaction a guest has with an accommodation – before, during and after their stay. It includes everything from the guest’s first online impression of your property to any messages you send after they leave. 

Traditionally, guest satisfaction was ensured by meeting reliable standards: prompt, timely service, smooth check-in, and a clean, comfortable room. 

Now, guests’ expectations have evolved. The latest trends show that today’s travelers want their stay to be a one-of-a-kind, curated experience, not just a nice place to rest their head. This is particularly true for younger travelers, with over half of Gen Z willing to spend more on experience-based stays.  

In effect, travelers’ purchasing decisions are being driven by their desire for unique, meaningful experiences – ones that align with their interests, lifestyles and values.  

The shift to experience-based stays presents a golden opportunity for owners, managers and hosts of all types of independent short-term accommodations. 

Unburdened by the standardized offerings of larger chains, independents are free to stand out by creating authentically local, utterly unique stays.  

Take these standout examples: 

However, you don’t need a one-of-a-kind lodging or dramatic view to set your accommodation apart. With 77% of today’s travelers prioritizing personalization over price, the key to delivering a 5-star guest experience in 2025 is to personalize each stay.  

Therefore, indelible experiences can be built from small yet personalized gestures like:  

Historically, it’s been hard for independent accommodation providers to deliver personalization at scale. But with the right tech, it’s now possible to offer 5-star experiences without big-chain budgets. 

Delivering personalization at scale demands the right technology – with the first requirement being that it helps you streamline workloads as bookings grow.  

This means you don’t want to manage the guest experience using differing, disconnected systems or a tangled web of API integrations. The fact is independent hosts don’t have time to manage, master, and maintain a jumble of different platforms.  

Instead, consider an all-in-one solution that lets you manage the guest experience from end-to-end. This solution should integrate essential tools you need to simplify operations while building unforgettable experiences: 

Here’s how these integrated tools can be used throughout the guest journey to create a 5-star experience, from pre- to post-stay. 

The guest experience begins not on arrival, but at the point a traveler first discovers you – usually when they’re planning their trip.  

This first impression is most likely to take place online. Therefore, your web presence plays a crucial role in setting up a seamless experience. Use your website and online listings to showcase what makes your property special. 

To help you achieve this, look for an all-in-one system that offers:  

The next step is converting the booking. A frustrating booking process on your website can put an early end to the guest experience – so ensure you make it simple and frictionless.  

Consider the following: 

This last point is crucial. Giving guests the option to select specific features like a quiet room or a preferred view in advance lets them start personalizing their stay – while helping you avoid any day-of-arrival disappointments. 

Once they’ve booked, your communication with guests is crucial to shaping their experience. Guests expect timely messaging and round-the-clock responsiveness. This makes AI, automation, and all-in-one messaging invaluable. 

AI enables personalization at scale. However, to deliver the best possible guest experiences, it’s best to balance AI-powered communications with the human touch.  

Here’s what we recommend: Leverage AI to handle routine and repetitive communications, while keeping your team focused on servicing in-house, paying guests.  

For example, let’s revisit those travelers who are yet to book. An AI tool that’s seamlessly integrated with your website and PMS can: 

This smart use of AI moves travelers through the booking funnel and establishes a great guest experience while saving you massive amounts of time. eviivo’s AI Concierge has enabled properties to manage 200% more inquiries with the same team and resources.  

Your PMS should let you send key communications automatically at scheduled points in the customer journey. This helps you meet guests’ needs at each moment while streamlining workloads.  

Here are just a few examples of comms to automate as part of a great end-to-end experience: 

For maximum reach, ensure you’re able to automate communications across multiple channels, including email, WhatsApp and SMS. Texts achieve a 98% open rate on average – almost 5x higher than email – so sending communications via WhatsApp and SMS virtually guarantees they get seen. 

Whichever channels you use to communicate with guests, make sure you’re able to manage all messages in one place. 

A unified inbox improves the guest experience by centralizing conversations from all major booking and communication channels. This improves consistency and gives your team the all-in-one visibility to respond to guest needs fast.  

Look for a PMS with a multi-channel inbox that’s capable of receiving messages via:  

Bonus points if your PMS stores relevant booking information and guest notes for every conversation.  

eviivo’s unified Conversations inbox enables property managers to leverage AI-suggested replies and templated ‘quick responses’ for messages from the above sources. This is another huge time saver: for users of the feature, 90% of guest replies are now AI-powered, with 60% requiring no human input. 

When done right, upsells can boost both guest satisfaction and revenue. 63% of travelers are more likely to return to a property when it offers personalized services, and custom add-ons boost guest spend by up to 25%.  

Upsells show guests that you’re able to provide an “extra”-special experience. So, use them to highlight any differentiators – from your smallest add-on to your most show-stopping selling point.  

Popular upsell ideas for independent properties: 

How and when you present your upsells to guests is crucial to delivering a smooth experience. Almost two-thirds of guests want to modify bookings after making a reservation, whether by upgrading their room or choosing add-on packages and activities.  

To take advantage, ensure you have total flexibility to offer upsells, automatically or on the fly, throughout the guest journey.  

This includes during the guest stay. Presenting the right add-on or upgrade to a guest who’s on-premises can turn their good experience into an exceptional one.  

Just remember to give yourself enough time to fulfill any upsell. Permit on-demand in-room ordering for services you can deliver quickly (e.g., room service, extra amenities), but impose a longer window for services that need advance preparation (e.g., airport transfers, dinner reservations).  

eviivo Suite™ is the only PMS that allows you to upsell extras at any time. This unparalleled flexibility helps you provide greater convenience to guests – while increasing your revenue opportunities. The system’s built-in CRM also includes historical guest insights, allowing you to tailor upsells to the preferences of specific guests.  

Guest experience doesn’t end at check-out. Post-stay follow up is vital to both reputation and guest retention (i.e., encouraging guests to return to your accommodation). 

Encouraging and managing feedback helps build your accommodation’s reputation, which reflects the guest experience that travelers can expect. While many happy guests can forget to leave feedback, a single negative review can cost you bookings.  

Therefore, take efforts to encourage feedback. This is easier if your all-in-one system allows you to automatically: 

Managing feedback is equally important. Look for tools that allow you to: 

If you’ve delivered an exceptional guest experience, you’ve got a good shot at earning repeat bookings – but don’t leave it to chance. Consider encouraging past guests to return by: 

eviivo Suite lets you do all this from one system, integrating the management of feedback and guest retention strategies alongside your daily operations. 

Independently owned accommodations have a distinct advantage when it comes to providing a unique guest experience.  

To benefit from the shift towards experience-based stays, review the qualities that differentiate your accommodation – whether they be locally-sourced extras, quirky activities and amenities, or small but meaningful gestures.  

Then, flow them into the customer journey in ways that create a customized experience for each guest. 

By using an all-in-one PMS that integrates automated upselling and AI-powered, multi-channel communications, you’ll be able to deliver personalized stays at scale – while freeing up your team to focus on guest service.  

eviivo Suite lets you manage the entire end-to-end guest experience from one place. It’s the only PMS that empowers property owners to offer upsells at any point in the guest journey – including during the stay. It also transforms guest engagement with industry-leading communication tools and an award-winning AI-powered inbox.  

Below are the key features that eviivo Suite integrates to help accommodation providers deliver a 5-star guest experience, every time out: