A

Ancillary revenue
What a hotel earns beyond the room rate: dinner, spa, upgrades, parking, late checkout. Across our properties, those that offer the right things in the right order earn 2.3 times the ancillary revenue of those that do not. Pre-arrival

B

Booking engine
The booking tool on a hotel's own website. Its confirmation email is often the last thing a guest hears from the hotel before they arrive.
Briefing sheet
A printed summary of the day's arrivals, occasions, VIPs and open requests that the team picks up at the start of the shift. We put it together overnight from guest conversations and the systems the hotel already runs. Morning briefing

C

Channel manager
The system that sends a hotel's rates and availability to booking sites and brings their reservations back into the PMS. Where a PMS has no usable connection, it can be the source of reservation data instead. Integrations
Contractual necessity
The legal basis for service messages. A message the guest needs in order to receive the stay they booked does not need separate consent. Data Processing Agreement
Controller and processor
Under UK GDPR, the controller decides why and how personal data is used, and the processor acts on its instructions. For guest data, the hotel is the controller and Biteluxe is its processor. Security

D

Day-before upgrade
A room upgrade offered the day before arrival, once the hotel knows which better rooms will stay empty. On any given day only a few guests are eligible, and that is by design. Room upgrades
Direct booking
A booking made with the hotel itself, on its website, by phone or by email, with no commission to a booking site.

E

Escalation
Handing a conversation to the right person on the hotel's team, with the context attached, when a guest needs a person. Housekeeping requests go one way, maintenance another, the way the property already works. During the stay

F

Folio
The running bill for a stay in the PMS: room charges, dinner, extras and payments. Checkout settles it. Check-in and checkout

G

Guest journey
Every moment a guest deals with the hotel, from booking to after checkout: the questions they ask, the things they book and pay for, and the moments the team needs to know about. What we build

I

In-stay messaging
Conversations during the stay: requests, questions, bookings for dinner or the spa, and orders to the room, on the guest's own phone. During the stay

M

Marketing message
Any message not directly needed to deliver the booking, such as promoting another business's service. We send no more than two non-service WhatsApp messages to a guest from the point of booking. Security

N

Night audit
The end-of-day routine in which the hotel closes the day's accounts in the PMS and rolls the business date forward.

O

OTA (online travel agent)
A booking site that sells a hotel's rooms for a commission. OTA guests often arrive with an email address that forwards through the booking site, so the hotel has no direct way to reach them until it asks. Check-in and checkout

P

A secure payment link sent to the guest's phone. The guest pays on their own device, so nobody at the hotel reads out or keys in card details. Payments
PCI DSS
The card industry's security standard for anyone who stores, processes or transmits card data. Level 1 is the highest. Guests can pay through the hotel's own payment provider or ours, which is PCI DSS Level 1 certified. Security
PMS (property management system)
The hotel's core system for reservations, rooms, rates, guest profiles and billing. We are official partners of Oracle Opera, Guestline and many other PMS providers. Integrations
Pre-arrival
The time between booking and arrival. The best moment to ask why a guest is coming, and to offer what fits before they make other plans. Pre-arrival

Q

QR code
A printed code a guest scans with their phone camera to start a conversation or open a page, in the room or at the desk. During the stay

R

Reply rate
The share of guests who reply to a message. Pre-arrival reply rates across our properties run from 33% to 79%. Pre-arrival

S

Service message
A message about the stay itself: check-in details, a restaurant booking, an update the guest needs. It is sent under contractual necessity and needs no opt-in. Data Processing Agreement
SOP (standard operating procedure)
The way a hotel's team does a task, whether it is written down or not. We build each guest journey around the hotel's own SOPs. About

T

Template message
A WhatsApp message approved in advance, which a business can send outside the 24-hour window: for example, the first message before arrival.
Trace
In Oracle Opera, a note on a reservation addressed to a department for a set date, so the right team sees it on the day. Integrations
Twenty-four-hour window
After a guest's last WhatsApp message, a business can reply freely for 24 hours. After that, the next message has to be a template message.

U

Upsell
Offering a guest more than they booked, such as a better room, dinner or a spa treatment, at the moment it is most useful to them. Room upgrades

W

Web chat
A chat window on the hotel's website, where a guest can ask a question before booking and get an answer straight away. During the stay
WhatsApp Business
WhatsApp for companies. It lets a hotel message guests from its own verified number, in the app guests already use every day.