Historically, as a business traveler, vacationer, or tourist, you had a limited number of ways to find and arrange accommodations.
Firstly, you can book through your favorite or most well-known hotel or accommodation chain. Depending on your needs and your budget, usually the largest of these would (and still have) at least one property in your chosen location and would provide a consistent standard across the globe or across the country.
Another option would be to contact a travel agency to arrange your trip and accommodation with them. Typically the agent would sell the tourist a “vacation package” or the business traveler a “standard rate” from their GDS (Global Distribution Systems like Saber or Galileo) One more little explanation of what goes on behind the scenes of These two methods: A vacation package was simply a “group discount” airfare known as a FIT (Fully Inclusive Tour) where in order to get the reduced rate, the traveler had to purchase a certain amount of approved accommodation, often nightly of the duration of the trip. This accommodation was packaged by travel wholesalers who negotiated with individual hotels or chains by offering them a minimum number of rooms/nights in exchange for a deep discount. The downside to these packages was generally a lack of flexibility and that the rooms booked were mostly communal, meaning the hotel could fit these discounted travelers into whatever room they had available on the night or nights. In contrast, a rack rate reservation made through the GDS, while more expensive (in part due to the high cost to the hotel of participating in the GDS, plus agent commission), was generally much more flexible and the customer would have any choice of rooms.
Today, of course, there is the Internet! The entire world of accommodation is at your fingertips, making it easy to find what you’re looking for. But is it? Unlike the phone books agents had years ago, the Internet doesn’t have a content or an index, and Google’s phone book may not be the same as yours. For example, a search for “lodging (in a) city” may not typically return a single actual hotel property until page 2, 3, or beyond. Of course, there are many different great sites offering a dazzling array of hotels in the most popular locations around the world. however, many of the offers on these sites are restrictive in many ways and can be arranged in an order more in line with the income of the individual property site than what works best for you. How do you know which one offers you the best? deal?
Take a multi-pronged approach to this in order to get you the right property, in the right location at the best available price.
Let’s imagine that you are going to a new place, where you have never been before. Take my hometown of Busselton in the beautiful Margaret River wine region of South West Western Australia, for example. Where to start?
First of all, go to the only site that has (almost) all lodging properties: Hotels Combined (No, I don’t work for them nor do I have shares or any other interest) In the light blue search box, enter your destination and arrival and departure (note that this is the date after your last night), dates, number of guests and click SEARCH. The first result will show (say) 25 hotels arranged in order of “Recommended”. You can modify this along the top line by: Stars; Distance; Price or Guest Rating, or at the bottom of the page in more depth by Star Rating, Price, Locations, Hotel Name (if known), Property Type, and/or Features. Please note that you can only change one field at a time. This powerful tool allows you to restrict the property you are looking for by any or all of these variables. Once you’ve chosen one, click BOOK NOW and you’ll see a new box showing a number of booking sites and their price for that property on the dates you want. When you click GO, you will be transferred to the booking site, as Hotels Combined is not a booking site, just a great directory. Goal STOP! Before you book, there are a few more checks and due diligence you may choose to do.
Firstly, Hotels Combined does not cover every property or every booking site eg Triple A or Wotif and one of the downsides to many of these big international booking sites though their cost to own accommodation is much lower than that of the first two reserves. methods I described, you may still receive a common room or face very restrictive conditions. You may also want to independently verify what other travelers’ experience of the property was. So:
Take a look at Tripadvisor (search by property name is the fastest way, but you can also search by location, etc.) to see how your past guests rate the property, and if you really want to get to the heart of the matter. Be brave, read the property’s responses to reviews, if they bother to, and you can even join as a contributor, it’s free, and submit a request to one or more of the reviewers to ask specific questions about your experience or the property. .
Once this is done, if you are still happy with your choice, or you made a new one, in which case repeat the process with Hotels Combined to find the best price offered, there is one last step I recommend: Do a property search. own website. Many lodging properties make the right decision, since all booking sites and other external sources of reservations, such as Visitor Centers, Auto Clubs, etc. They charge varying levels of commission from around 10 – 18%, to ensure that the same or lower price will always be offered on their own website.
Finally, almost as a note if you plan to stay more than two or three nights, especially if it’s off-season or midweek in a vacation area, or Friday-Sunday nights in town, and/or if there’s more of you than just you need 1 bedroom try to phone the property especially if it is a smaller owner operated as most of the time you will be speaking with the owner who may be willing to negotiate rates and will no doubt be fine informed. over it and the surrounding region.
While I hope this method will be helpful to you and will of course lead you to our property if you plan to stay in this region, I am also very sure that it will not, as I am convinced that our happiest guests are those who They have made the most conscious and informed decision to stay here.
Happy journey!