"we are the only accommodation that gives each guest a welcome tour of their room"
How do you advertise it? Or that's for your loyal (returning) clients?
Reply: We don't actually advertise it - however it is mentioned consistently in our reviews as a positive. We treat ALL guests the same, whether 2 weeks or 1 day, they get the tour. An acute observation of body language tells me to either to make it snappy or indulge the guest with a half hour long discussion. :-)
I am surprised, that you are only the one with best view and yet other properties are overbooked and you are not full.
Reply: We are full. But it is almost impossible to avoid 1 or 2 day gaps between some bookings which we then open up to short term bookers. Our main competitor has a 60 room hotel and various reception staff - they quite often get overbooking (a bad thing!) and phone us for help in accommodating them. We are much smaller and have a channel manager plus monitor each arrival by placing them into a spreadsheet. We therefore spot over bookings almost immediately (only 4 in total in 5 years) - all mistakes were usually caused by not reopening a cancellation correctly or a channel manager connection problem at time of booking.
I see your point, however why should we pepper our accommodation with multiple single days that then prevent other guests from booking 3 days to two weeks because we have a multitude of single days slap bang in the middle of when they wish to stay with us?
The majority of our guests are trying to come here for a full holiday (sometimes a full 14 days) whereas the majority of single day guests are simply using us as a stopping point because we are near the airport and the rest of their holiday was booked elsewhere.
We are therefore a little mercenary (for good reason) in our policy and it works well. If we have single and two day 'gaps' - we THEN open those rooms to people who are seeking them - but not before we have given our long stay guests the opportunity to book.
At the end of the day, as much as we are in the business of making the most for our guests, your emotions should not interfere with good business sense.
Our prices are based on the fact we have the only sea view in the town, (the three other hotels face the wrong way!), we have the best reviews (that is something we strive to keep - by being the 'best', there are no short cuts), we are the only accommodation that gives each guest a welcome tour of their room, the facilities and tips on where to go - plus a guide on the town and where shops and restaurants are. This can take 10 minutes to sometimes half an hour per guest but it makes us unique. One of the competition provides a key code and the guest arrives to an empty building, uses their code to enter and finds their room - other than a welcoming fruit bowl, it is a rather cold way to greet a guest in our opinion - albeit efficient.
Saying all that, we have limitations over other bigger establishments that have on-site restaurants and a swimming pool so we need to be aware that we cannot out price those places with better facilities. We therefore set our rate and adjust UPWARDS by monitoring the opposition who are all higher than us because of these better facilities. If they put their rates higher by €10 - so do we, we therefore keep competitive but take advantage of closing the gaps in rate disparity when they occur.
Lastly, we actually have good relationships with our competitors - if they overbook (surprising how bigger establishments overlap guests and need to accommodate them for a day) we are always on hand to use our 'gaps' to take the one day stayers despite our three day minimum policy. There should be no empty beds1
Reply to Katerinka12
"we are the only accommodation that gives each guest a welcome tour of their room"
How do you advertise it? Or that's for your loyal (returning) clients?
Reply: We don't actually advertise it - however it is mentioned consistently in our reviews as a positive. We treat ALL guests the same, whether 2 weeks or 1 day, they get the tour. An acute observation of body language tells me to either to make it snappy or indulge the guest with a half hour long discussion. :-)
I am surprised, that you are only the one with best view and yet other properties are overbooked and you are not full.
Reply: We are full. But it is almost impossible to avoid 1 or 2 day gaps between some bookings which we then open up to short term bookers. Our main competitor has a 60 room hotel and various reception staff - they quite often get overbooking (a bad thing!) and phone us for help in accommodating them. We are much smaller and have a channel manager plus monitor each arrival by placing them into a spreadsheet. We therefore spot over bookings almost immediately (only 4 in total in 5 years) - all mistakes were usually caused by not reopening a cancellation correctly or a channel manager connection problem at time of booking.
Hi Corinne,
I see your point, however why should we pepper our accommodation with multiple single days that then prevent other guests from booking 3 days to two weeks because we have a multitude of single days slap bang in the middle of when they wish to stay with us?
The majority of our guests are trying to come here for a full holiday (sometimes a full 14 days) whereas the majority of single day guests are simply using us as a stopping point because we are near the airport and the rest of their holiday was booked elsewhere.
We are therefore a little mercenary (for good reason) in our policy and it works well. If we have single and two day 'gaps' - we THEN open those rooms to people who are seeking them - but not before we have given our long stay guests the opportunity to book.
At the end of the day, as much as we are in the business of making the most for our guests, your emotions should not interfere with good business sense.
Our prices are based on the fact we have the only sea view in the town, (the three other hotels face the wrong way!), we have the best reviews (that is something we strive to keep - by being the 'best', there are no short cuts), we are the only accommodation that gives each guest a welcome tour of their room, the facilities and tips on where to go - plus a guide on the town and where shops and restaurants are. This can take 10 minutes to sometimes half an hour per guest but it makes us unique. One of the competition provides a key code and the guest arrives to an empty building, uses their code to enter and finds their room - other than a welcoming fruit bowl, it is a rather cold way to greet a guest in our opinion - albeit efficient.
Saying all that, we have limitations over other bigger establishments that have on-site restaurants and a swimming pool so we need to be aware that we cannot out price those places with better facilities. We therefore set our rate and adjust UPWARDS by monitoring the opposition who are all higher than us because of these better facilities. If they put their rates higher by €10 - so do we, we therefore keep competitive but take advantage of closing the gaps in rate disparity when they occur.
Lastly, we actually have good relationships with our competitors - if they overbook (surprising how bigger establishments overlap guests and need to accommodate them for a day) we are always on hand to use our 'gaps' to take the one day stayers despite our three day minimum policy. There should be no empty beds1