Key Findings

  • Early check-in is an arrival-day impulse. 42% of early check-in purchases happen on the day the guest arrives, and about 82% land within the final week before arrival.

  • Late checkout is a departure-day impulse. 49% of late checkout purchases happen on the day the guest leaves.

  • Bigger parties buy more and spend more. Solo travelers buy an upsell on 1.5% of bookings; groups of seven or more buy on 5.3%. And the large-group basket ($144 per buyer) is more than double the solo one ($57).

  • Both of these moments fall on your busiest mornings — arrival-day and departure-day turnovers — which is exactly why so many of these sales come down to something reaching the guest automatically.

Early check-in and late checkout are last-minute buys, not booking-time ones.

Purchase decisions are more likely to be made last minute than during booking.  Here's when early check-in actually sells:

CHART: bar chart of early check-in purchases by timing, peaking hard on arrival day. Most early check-in sales happen on arrival day itself.

Late checkout is the same story from the other end of the stay:

CHART: 49% of late checkout purchases happen on departure day itself.

Clear pattern: the two upsells nearly every property sells are decided at the bookends of the stay. The guest buys early check-in the morning they show up, and late checkout the morning they leave. Sending either offer at booking, weeks out, misses the moment the guest is actually thinking about it.

Bigger parties are your targets to sell to.

Bigger parties are more likely to buy an upsell, and they spend more when they do.

A solo traveler and a couple spend about the same when they buy (~$57). The jump happens at three or more people: the basket climbs to $84 for small groups and $144 for large ones, and the conversion rate more than triples from solo to large group.

What this means for operators.

Set up an automated journey of communications throughout their stay, including offering early check-in before arrival and late checkout before they leave.

Second, for the guest who shows a slight interest, Akia's AI handles upsells in the moment by reading the request, understanding the context, and either completes it or sends a link for the guest to pay, without pulling anyone off the floor.

How AI Agents Upsell:

  1. Guest shows interest in early check-in.
  2. Akia's AI Agent review your policies and PMS data to check availability.
  3. Automatically send a payment link or confirm the order.

An Akia AI Agent handling an early check-in request end to end — it checks availability against PMS data, offers the upsell with a $50 fee, charges the guest, updates the PMS, and notifies staff immediately, with no staff member touching it.