Beyond Room Rates: What’s Holding Hotels Back From Boosting Revenue

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Personalization pays off for hotels – some 63% of travelers are willing to pay extra for specific room attributes beyond the standard daily rate, according to recent research from Amadeus.

It makes sense that hotels are getting creative in offering packages that go beyond breakfast, pool passes or late-checkout. Wellness travelers want yoga kits. Business travelers want printing services. Gen Z travelers may want an Xbox or premium television channels, according to the research. And they’re willing to pay up to 20 to 25% more on top of their room rate for it.

Our annual independently commissioned luxury travel survey revealed that guests want to feel like the protagonists of their own unique vacation stories—where, as one respondent put it, ‘every detail is curated to make you feel like the center of attention.’”

And it raises the question: How well can your property capitalize on the anticipation of the trip and actually capture revenue from personalized packages before travelers set foot on site?

Many hotels continue to miss out on this growing revenue stream because they struggle to process card-not-present transactions (where the physical card is not being processed on a point-of-sale device) in a secure, cost-effective and reliable way. This is even more challenging when it comes to international travelers and events and stays booked on a corporate card.  

So, how can hotels better position themselves to collect this revenue? Our recent travel survey of 500+ luxury travelers offered a few insights.

1. Capitalize on preferences to pre-pay

58% of luxury travelers surveyed said they prefer to pay for all their hotel or lodging expenses before their trip begins. The willingness to prepay becomes even more compelling when hotels provide incentives. When offered a 10% discount, 88% of travelers said they would likely prepay — even if the charge was non-refundable. With a 20% discount, that number jumps to 92%.

This preference opens the door for hotels to package services, upsell amenities and encourage guests to commit to experiences earlier in the booking cycle. But to make that strategy work, hotels must provide localized payment options that feel convenient, secure and transparent to travelers.

2. Offer choice in payment method and localize the experience

Research shows there’s an anticipation window in which travelers are more likely to book additional experiences — upsell increases by 8.23% – when emails are sent within 12 days after the booking.

How easily travelers can act on these offers depends heavily on the payment infrastructure. Luxury travelers in particular expect flexibility and choice in how they pay. They want:

• Flexibility in payment method: 70% prefer to pay by credit card and 27% prefer alternative methods such as PayPal or Venmo.

• Localized payment options: For international travelers, additional challenges can arise from unexpected fees, confusing exchange rates or the inability to pay in their local currency. Unexpected fees and confusion over FX rates was the second biggest pain point named by those surveyed, ranking only slightly behind payment security. Collectively, they can create hesitation in the purchasing process, and push travelers to delay, opt against the purchase or look somewhere else.

Conversely, when travelers know they can complete payments easily and securely, they are more likely to book additional services and remain loyal to brands that make the process seamless.

3. Ensure high levels of security without introducing unnecessary friction

Travelers care deeply about payment security. 71% of travelers cite security as a concern when paying for travel, and roughly one-third say security is the biggest pain point they experience while booking trips.

One of the most challenging aspects of scaling card-not-present transactions is ensuring high levels of security at the right cost to the business and level of convenience for the payer. Some hotels are still using paper forms for credit card authorizations, especially related to event booking processes. This opens up a risk for fraudulent transactions, increasing the risk of chargebacks for the hotel. In addition to increasing risk, it slows the authorization and confirmation process.

Tokenization as a core part of the security infrastructure allows hotels to process future payments conveniently without the risk of storing the credit card number on file – to increase security and reduce PCI scope.

Payments as a growth lever

Your staff knows you’re losing revenue to poor payment operations – 79% worry they are losing customers due to inefficient payment processes. Flywire found in a separate survey of more than 300 general managers and event directors at U.S. hotels.

By enabling flexible pre-payment options, offering a wide range of payment methods, and simplifying internal workflows, hotels can remove friction for both guests and staff. The result is a smoother guest experience, more efficient operations, and a stronger ability to capture ancillary revenue.

For more insights, see the full research reports referenced above:

How to win over the luxury traveler in 2026

The blueprint for stronger hotel performance

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