My name is Mel Shamblen and for the last thirty plus years I have been involved in the travel industry. In 1974 I started as a night auditor, front desk clerk at a large Interstate Hotel in the Rocky Mountains. Within a few months I was promoted to Front Office Manager and finally Assistant General Manager. I learned a lot about the hotel and hospitality industry in those first few years, and have stuck it out in the hospitality business for all these years, moving into management as a General Manager, a Controller and a Hospitality Consultant.
I have my own hospitality advertising company…MSHospitality; with this company I advertise hotel accommodations on the internet. My two basic websites are http://www.smokefreeaccommodations.com and http://www.strangestays.com and my latest site http://ezroomfinder.com . I also act as a consultant to the accommodation industry in planning their internet advertising strategies.
The industry has changed considerably over the years, especially with the introduction of the computer and the Internet. In the past we depended on traffic passing us on our street, the interstate highway, travel agents and directories. We now depend on the internet and World Wide Web for our reservations. This has also affected the way you the consumer will find our hotel. You will, whether booking well into the future or finding a last minute accommodation most likely, do it with your computer.
In writing these travel tips for my own website I have decided to share some of the inside secrets from the travel industry with emphasis on Accommodations. We will start with booking hotels, motels and other accommodations…How to get the best rates, Stay at better accommodations at lower rates, when to book for the very best rates, what to look for that may be driving the rates up, being flexible on your dates to get lower rates, etc. I will explain how to use the internet to find a lower price room, comparative shopping, property direct versus internet pricing. We will also cover checking in and out of the hotel, avoiding add-on charges, getting upgrades for free or just a small additional cost, hotel security and safety, and finally using the front desk clerks or concierge to get the best local tips on food and entertainment.
Shopping for your room.
What you need to know. You have decided to take a trip out of town and will need to find accommodations. The big question is always the same, how can I get the best room for my money. Today, there are so many alternatives….Travel Agents, Franchise Web sites, internet booking engines, individual hotel web sites, direct to hotel phone, and many specialty hotel locators. With so many choices, no wonder the public has become so confused. I am going to go over a few of the best choices and suggest some choices to avoid.
Unless you are a large corporation with many people traveling about the country, the first major no-no is to avoid booking through a Travel Agent. These agents work off of commissions and most often book accommodations through a secondary booking company, who also either charges a commission or charges the travel agent and the hotel for their service. Everybody wants their cut of the action. You the consumer are the sucker who gets the shaft on these situations. These costs are buried into so called "package deals" and in most cases you could do much better on your own.
Tour groups are another method of robbing you. Once again you are offered a "package deal" or a "bundled rate". The idea is great, you go with a group of like minded people and supposedly the rate is lower since you all share the cost. Not so, in most cases only hotels that are of inferior quality book the low end groups. The tour companies are very stingy and want to give the lowest price possible for the room so they can keep more of your money. Hotels know this and so you end up staying in second rate dumps with minimum service and many times in poor condition.
My number one suggestion is that you search the discount travel sites first. Search several of them for the best possible deal. Most of these sites offer to put you in a certain grade of accommodation at excellent savings, 40 to 50% off the hotels regular rates.
This brings us to hotel pricing policies. Regular or Rack rates are what most hotels call their published rate. These rates are set fairly high so that the hotel can adjust around them for their desired Average Daily Rate. As a General Manager my goal is to increase revenue and reduce expense. I use Average Daily Rate (ADR)and Revenue Per Occupied Room (RevPar) to judge how I am doing. Rates are not stationary; we the hospitality industries have learned much from our fellow travel partner "The Airline Industry". Our prices can vary by as much as three digits based on many different criteria. Most hotels play the "rate game".
On any given day I may have several guests staying in identical rooms with rates that vary as much as $50 to $100. The reasons for all these different rates are as varied as the rates themselves. During budgeting for the upcoming year the budget committee, generally the property GM, Controller and Corporate executives or owners sit down and determine the rack rate (regular published rate) for the coming year. Now you must remember what I said earlier about regular published rates, these are possibly the highest rates you will pay unless there is a special event or holiday driving rates higher.
In the hospitality industry we use the term "Driving Rates" often, you don't want to book a room at all when I am driving my rates. We use this tool to build our Revenue to its highest possible point. When there are events, holidays, conventions or any other specific circumstance that has pushed my occupancy to the point that I am closing in on a full house, and all my competition is in the same situation, I will push my rates not only to the "Rack Rate" but beyond that if I can. This is the time when I can make up for all the days when I had to give out extremely low rates in order to build my Revenue per room.
By utilizing both of these tools, i.e. "Driving Rates" and Building Revenue per Room by discounting, I play a delicate balancing act which hopefully will in the end give me the highest possible revenue per available room over the long haul.
You are now asking why I have explained all this to you. All you wanted to know was how you could find the best rate for a room. Understanding how I, as a general Manager, work my rates gives you valuable information to help you book a cheaper price. Let's say you know you need a room in San Francisco on a date that a huge convention is in town. First, you want to book that date as early as possible, why, because the closer to the date you get the higher I will be driving my rates. You may even get lucky and be able to book the room online through a discount service before I close them down, and I will close them down as soon as I know I have a good base. This option probably will not work on an annual event or holiday, as I will start driving those rates immediately. Knowing why I discount, and why I drive my rates will definitely be of assistance in searching for the best possible rate.
Now that you know this information you must also know that being flexible on dates can be a great way to save on accommodations. I recently decided to make a trip to Memphis, a promised date for my wife and me to see Graceland and all things "Elvis". We decided on a particular date and decided that to save on airline and hotel rates we would go midweek and come home on a Saturday. During the search process we continued to run into unrealistically high room rates. I called the hotel we wanted to stay at directly and asked to speak to the concierge (these guys know what is happening in their cities long before most people, it's their job) as it happened the week we wanted to go was Spring BBQ cookout in Memphis. Hotels throughout the area were booked months ahead and what rooms were still available were being held for premium prices. General Managers were driving rates. Being flexible on our dates allowed us to book rooms and airfare the following week at about one third of the price we would have had to pay on the previous week. Flexibility can be your best friend when it comes to finding great rates on accommodations, airlines and travel costs of all kinds.
Where to look before you Book.
You are now armed with a great deal of information on how we price our rooms. I now want to give you a few suggestions on where to go to find those great rates. Don't just book the first rate you come across online. Just by shopping around you can save a great deal of money on your accommodations.
Internet Discount Services: such as Hotwire, Priceline, and Hotels.com offer rates that are generally 30 to 60% off of a hotels rack rate. These sites are always a good place to start and give you a base for your price search. Most of these services pick the hotel for you based on certain criteria you choose.
Internet Travel Services: include sites such as orbitz, Expedia and Travelocity to mention just a few. These sites offer discounted accommodations and regulate their advertisers by comparing with each other to make sure they are all at the same price. With these services you are shown several hotels and price ranges for those hotels. You actually get to pick the hotel of your choice. You can compare features and amenities and see pictures (often enhanced) of each hotel offered.
Specialty Internet Travel Sites: these web sites hone in on a specific type of accommodation - Bed & Breakfast, Haunted Locations, Beach Locations, etc., a specific service - spas, conventions, business etc., or a special feature - smoke free, pet friendly.
Most of these sites act only as search engines, directing you to the hotels individual website or phone number for booking the rooms. Some of these sites do offer discounts for mentioning their site when you book. These discounts can range from 10 to 30% off of the regular rates. This is the best way to find a hotel with the features, services or accommodations you require.
Search Engines: If you have a particular hotel, location or feature in mind, a great place to start your search is with Google, Yahoo, Bing or other search engines. Most specialty sites or hotels that service a special feature will be listed under the keywords that bring you to them. Put in Smoke Free Hotels, and a list of websites that specialize in smoke free hotels will appear, as well as many individual hotels and hotel brands that specialize in this type of accommodation. Many will offer discounts to draw your business.
Brand Specific Websites: Franchise and corporate branded hotel chains all offer websites that list all hotels under their brands. These are excellent sites for getting an idea of pricing. Many of these sites offer "Best Guaranteed Rates". This means they will be just below the price or inline with the prices offered by the Internet Travel sites. Many times this is a good place to start. These sites all offer preferred customer points for airline miles and hotel discounts for joining their preferred clubs. This is an advantage for both you as a customer and the hotel to build loyalty.
Hotel Direct Websites: Whether you find these on your own, through a search engine or through a specialty site, you may be able to save a great deal by booking here. For a hotel, this is his least expensive method of getting a reservation. All of the Travel Services charge fees to process reservations for a hotel, including the franchises. As a hotel manager I can offer you a discount directly at a lower price if you book directly with me.
Direct call or Walk in: Calling my hotel directly from a phone number listed in a phone book, on the search engine or from a specialty site, is my least expensive reservation. Ask if I have any specials, or mention that you saw this or that price online and I will either match it or depending on my occupancy go a bit lower or higher. Walking in can be risky, especially if something is filling me up fast. Should you be coming in late though and I still have rooms left you may be able to get a bargain just so I can fill my last few rooms. One thing to remember when trying to get a direct deal at a lower price is that you get more with honey than with vinegar. In other words, don't try to strong arm me into giving you a discount. A smile and politeness will generally work miracles.
