F&B upselling: fill the hotel restaurant before dinner

The most effective upselling techniques in hotel food and beverage are specific suggestions made at the right moment: a named wine that suits the dish, a tasting menu offered before the guest has decided, an arrival breakfast offered while the guest is still planning the trip. In a hotel, most of that moment comes before the guest sits down, so the strongest F&B upselling starts with a message days before arrival, not with the waiter.

This guide covers both halves: the hotel restaurant upselling techniques that work at the table, then the techniques beyond it, each with an example of what is said, when, and by whom.

Why the hotel restaurant has an advantage (and where it loses it)

A stand-alone restaurant has to win every guest from the street. A hotel restaurant has a captive audience sleeping upstairs, already on site and often looking for somewhere to eat tonight. Most hotels waste part of that advantage.

The reason is a matter of attention. Guests book rooms weeks or months in advance, and at that point they are thinking about dates and rates, not dinner. By the time they arrive, many have already reserved a table in town from a travel guide, or they plan to “see what’s around”. The on-site restaurant competes with every place within walking distance, and it often does so without the guest ever knowing what is on the menu this week.

This is why the most important principle of hotel food and beverage upselling is timing. The waiter’s suggestion only reaches guests who are already seated. The decision about where to eat is made earlier, usually on a phone, usually before check-in. Elisabeth Veit, owner of Hotel Enzian Obertauern, described the problem precisely: “If you book a hotel, sometimes this happens already a couple of months before, and then you don’t really have a look again at the website and the weekly programme.” Her answer was a reminder “just before you start your holiday”, and it is the backbone of the techniques below.

Upselling techniques in hotel food and beverage at the table

These are the classic hotel restaurant upselling techniques. They still work, provided they sound like hospitality rather than a script.

Suggest something specific, not “anything else?”

“Would you like something to drink?” invites a no. “The Grüner Veltliner by the glass works beautifully with the trout” invites a yes, because it answers a question the guest had not yet asked. Specific suggestions work because they reduce the effort of choosing. The guest is not being sold to, they are being advised by someone who knows the menu. Train your team to name one dish, one wine or one side, with a reason.

Pairing as a service

Pairing is the most natural F&B upselling technique because it improves the meal. Offer a glass paired with each course of a tasting menu, or a single recommended glass for a main course. The key is to offer the pairing at the moment of ordering food, not after the wine list has been closed. If the kitchen has a signature dish, agree a default pairing for it so that every server recommends the same wine with confidence.

The aperitif and the dessert moments

Two moments decide much of the average spend: the first minute after the guest sits down, and the minute after the main plates are cleared. At the start, a short aperitif suggestion (“We have a local elderflower spritz this week”) fills the pause while guests read the menu. At the end, bring the dessert menu or describe two desserts instead of asking whether anyone wants dessert. Guests who planned to skip dessert often share one when it is described well.

Upgrade the bottle, not the guest

When a table orders a bottle, offer one alternative a step up, with a reason (“If you enjoy this style, the reserve from the same producer has more depth”). One option, not three. The guest keeps control, and the suggestion shows knowledge instead of pressure.

Tasting menus and the chef’s table

A tasting menu or chef’s table is an experience upsell rather than a volume upsell. Guests rarely choose it on the spot, because it takes time and needs planning. That makes it a pre-arrival offer more than a table offer: describe it in a message before the stay, with the evenings it runs, and let guests reserve it in advance.

Sharing plates and sides

Sharing plates, a cheese board for the table or a seasonal side dish raise the spend per cover without asking anyone to change their main choice. They work particularly well for groups and couples who want to linger.

Menu design and anchoring

The menu itself sells. Place a high-priced signature dish at the top of a section so that the dishes below it feel reasonable. Describe dishes by origin and preparation rather than adjectives. Highlight a small number of items, because a menu where everything is highlighted highlights nothing.

Scripts that feel like hospitality

Staff training is where most F&B upselling succeeds or fails. Give your team a small number of lines they believe in, rehearse them, and let them taste what they recommend. Your food and beverage manager should review which suggestions guests accept, and drop the ones that feel forced. A suggestion that the server would not order themselves will never sound sincere.

Hotel restaurant upselling beyond the table

The techniques above act on guests who are already seated. The following ones decide how many guests are seated in the first place, and they are where a hotel has an advantage no stand-alone restaurant can match: it knows who is arriving, when, and how to reach them.

Pre-arrival dinner reservations and special evenings

A few days before arrival, send a message that introduces the restaurants and the evenings that fall within the guest’s exact stay: a wine tasting, a chef’s menu, a themed dinner. Add a button to reserve a table. The message works because it arrives while the guest is planning, and because it is relevant to their dates rather than a generic brochure.

Hotel Enzian Obertauern, an adults-only alpine hotel with three à la carte restaurants, a wine cellar and a weekly events programme, runs exactly this. Its pre-arrival WhatsApp messages confirm the stay details, introduce the restaurants and share the weekly programme for the guest’s days. The messages reached a 92% open rate, and restaurant reservations from WhatsApp campaigns rose by 38%. The Hotel Enzian case study covers the full setup.

After the guest taps “Reserve a table”, a member of the restaurant team confirms and offers the wine pairing, at the moment the guest is already saying yes.

Arrival breakfast and the first drink

Guests who arrive early have hours to fill before their room is ready. An arrival breakfast is an offer that solves a problem for them. Spa Resort Geinberg, a 4-star superior thermal resort in Upper Austria, sends a PMS-triggered WhatsApp message before arrival with the guest’s name, stay dates, check-in from 16:00 and thermal baths from 08:00, followed by quick-reply buttons: “Enjoy arrival breakfast”, “Massages & Treatments” and “Arrival & Parking”. The breakfast is one tap away, offered at the moment the guest is working out the arrival day.

The same logic applies to the first drink. A welcome drink voucher in the arrival-day message brings guests to the bar on their first evening, and guests who have found the bar once tend to return.

Half board and DBB upgrades

For resort and leisure hotels, converting room-only or bed and breakfast bookings to dinner, bed and breakfast is the largest single F&B upsell. It moves dinner revenue forward and fills the restaurant predictably. The best moment is shortly after booking or in the pre-arrival message, with a clear description of what dinner includes. Offer it as convenience (“dinner is taken care of every evening”) rather than as a discount.

Tonight’s menu to in-house guests

In the early afternoon, send guests who are in the house tonight a short message with the evening’s menu or the chef’s special and a button to reserve. It reaches guests at the point they start wondering about dinner, and it gives them a reason to stay in rather than search for a restaurant in town. Keep it short: one image, two lines, one button.

Room service and in-room dining

Room service sells best when guests can see the menu without searching for a folder. A QR code in the room that opens a WhatsApp conversation with the menu, and a clear answer to “is the kitchen still open?”, removes the friction. Suggest one add-on with the order: a dessert with a late dinner, a bottle of water with breakfast. For more on the formats, see our guide to room service apps for hotels.

Questions at the table

Guests increasingly have questions they hesitate to ask a busy waiter: what suits the fish, whether a dish contains nuts, what the house wine is. A QR code on the table that opens a WhatsApp conversation lets them ask in their own language, and a helpful answer often becomes a recommendation.

Bar, events and spa-and-dinner packages

Promote the bar programme and events to in-house guests on the day they happen. Combine F&B with other departments: a spa-and-dinner package for couples, a late breakfast after a treatment morning, a light lunch at the pool. Our companion guide on hotel spa upselling techniques covers the spa side of these packages.

Take-home, the next stay and local guests

The departure message is the moment to offer take-home products (house wine, the breakfast jam, a cookbook) and to invite guests back for a special evening next season. Local guests and non-residents matter too: many hotel restaurants depend on them outside peak weeks. Answer their questions on your website quickly (opening hours, menus, dress code, parking), because a guest who waits for a reply books elsewhere.

Hotel food and beverage upselling techniques at a glance

How chatlyn helps hotel F&B upselling reach more guests

The techniques work only if the right guest hears about them at the right moment. That is a communication problem, and it is what chatlyn, the AI-Native GRM, is built for. Your restaurant, reservation and POS systems stay in place; chatlyn works alongside them and handles the conversation around them.

Messages triggered by the stay. chatlyn connects to your PMS, so events such as booking created, before arrival, check-in day, check-out and after departure trigger WhatsApp messages for hotels with images and buttons. You chain them into a guest journey: the pre-arrival restaurant introduction, the arrival breakfast offer, tonight’s menu, the departure message. Each journey has a test mode, and each step shows clicks and conversions, so you can see which offers guests act on.

The right guests, at the right time. Live lists show who is in-house, arriving today, departing tomorrow, recently checked out and celebrating a birthday this week, and you can build custom segments. The hotel CRM holds each guest’s stays and spend from the PMS alongside every conversation, and the AI labels guests from both. That is how “tonight’s menu” goes only to guests who are in the house tonight.

Answers when guests ask. The AI hotel chatbot answers on WhatsApp and webchat from your own knowledge: menus, the wine list, opening hours, the events programme. It replies in the guest’s language and hands requests to your team: a table request goes to the restaurant, a room service order goes to the kitchen. The AI makes sure the request arrives, with context, in one inbox where your restaurant team has its own logins.

QR codes on tables and in rooms. A QR code opens a WhatsApp journey or an interactive message, so the in-room menu, the table question and the bar programme all start a conversation your team can see.

The results show why this matters. At Hotel Enzian, the AI handled around 85% of routine enquiries, which left reception free to look after guests in person, while restaurant reservations from WhatsApp campaigns rose by 38%. Spa Resort Geinberg’s WhatsApp campaigns, including offers for Thermen-Restaurant breakfast, reached a 95% open rate against about 20% for email, and more than 10,000 guests a year were reached on WhatsApp. Read the Spa Resort Geinberg case study for the full journey. For a group view, IMLAUER Hotels used WhatsApp newsletters to promote seasonal offers, restaurant experiences and in-house services, with a 93% open rate across its properties in Salzburg and Vienna, described in the IMLAUER case study.

A single-property hotel can run one journey for its restaurant and bar, while hotel groups set up the same journey in each property, with each house’s own menus and events. See how food and beverage teams work in chatlyn day to day, how chatlyn helps increase hotel upsell revenue, and for more formats, our WhatsApp campaign ideas and guide to upselling in hotels.

What to measure

Hotel restaurant upselling is manageable when a few numbers are tracked every week, in your POS and PMS:

• Covers: the number of guests served per service, split into residents and non-residents.
• Capture rate: the share of in-house guests who eat in the hotel restaurant. This is the number pre-arrival and in-stay messages move most directly.
• Average spend per cover: the number the table techniques move (pairing, aperitif, dessert, the bottle upgrade).
• Pre-sold F&B: dinners, tasting menus, arrival breakfasts and DBB upgrades booked before arrival.
• TRevPAR: total revenue per available room, which shows whether F&B adds to the value of each room night.

In chatlyn, clicks and conversions per journey step show which messages drive reservations; compare them with covers and capture rate in your own systems, and change one element at a time (image, send time, button text).

FAQ

What are the most effective upselling techniques in hotel food and beverage?

Specific suggestions made at the right moment: a named wine with a reason, a tasting menu offered before the stay, an arrival breakfast offered while the guest plans the trip, and tonight’s menu sent to in-house guests in the afternoon. At the table, pairing, the aperitif and the dessert moment raise the average spend.

How do you increase the capture rate of a hotel restaurant?

Reach guests before they make other plans. Introduce the restaurant and the evenings within their stay a few days before arrival, offer a reservation button, and remind in-house guests of tonight’s menu on the day. Hotel Enzian Obertauern saw restaurant reservations from WhatsApp campaigns rise by 38% with this approach.

How do you train hotel restaurant staff for upselling without sounding pushy?

Give them a small number of suggestions they believe in, let them taste the dishes and wines, and teach them to offer one option with a reason. Review which suggestions guests accept and drop the ones that feel forced.

How does an AI chatbot handle hotel restaurant reservations?

chatlyn’s AI answers questions about menus, opening hours and events, and hands table requests to your restaurant team, who confirm them in your reservation system.

Which hotel F&B upsells work best before arrival?

Dinner reservations for special evenings, tasting menus, arrival breakfast and half board or DBB upgrades. They all need planning, so guests decide on them before the stay rather than on the spot.