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Genuine question, do hotels not want to be 100% full?
We’re heading Up North for Eurovision tomorrow. We booked a (cancellable) room in Manchester months ago as Liverpool hotels were asking silly money.
And a day before, they still are. Even Premier Inn and Travelodge want around £450 to £500 for 2 nights!!!
Strangely our hotel in Manchester, The Park Inn Radisson, has dropped it’s price twice, luckily it’s a cancellable room!
A hotel in Waterloo would be cheaper. They’ll make their mind up one day. Save all your kisses for the maids.
Revenue Management at hotels is a law until itself. It could be that they have simply overlooked it or more likely they will have calculations that show how many and percentage chance of same day bookings regardless of rate. It is better selling 3 rooms for 2 nights at £500 than selling 5 rooms at £300 a night, you have less overheads with 3 rooms than 5 rooms. You also have to factor in anyone on a cancellable rate who may cancel and rebook at cheaper rates, thus reducing the benefit of selling more rooms even further.
Hotels will often prefer to have less rooms sold at a higher rate than selling out, especially in these times of under staffed hospitality. Many hotels are still not selling 100% capacity for this exact reason.
Also the final part is if non of the hotels are blinking, thus keeping rates high, it doesnt make anyone drop their rates. If someone drops then often others follow suit as they have no choice. During popular events however hotels know its in all their interests to keep rates high!
The amount of money a hotel can make or loose by simply having a very good on the ball Revenue Manager is crazy!
£450 is quite becoming the standard for two nights in Manchester these days especially when there is a big event on but there can be some last minute price drops
The HI ia currently available for an average of £130 / night for tomorrow and saturday.
Since COVID I think it’s become even more of a science as a lot more bookings come in / get cancelled at the last minute . Dropping your price only to sell what you’d likely have sold anyway just by waiting would be a bad decision, even if you end up selling slightly less overall over time – doing so at a better rate is preferable. Especially when it’s so hard to get housekeepers etc at the moment. You also do not want people becoming conditioned to you discounting
That said sometimes hotels do drop their prices, I need Manchester on a Friday and rates were ridiculous but just today actually I snagged something reasonable so it’s always worth keeping an eye
We’re heading Up North for Eurovision tomorrow. We booked a (cancellable) room in Manchester months ago as Liverpool hotels were asking silly money.
And a day before, they still are. Even Premier Inn and Travelodge want around £450 to £500 for 2 nights!!!
I had a room booked at the Premier Inn at Media City for this week, hoping that I’d get lucky and bag Eurovision tickets (unfortunately I didn’t manage to get it…).
But looking at that hotel, the rate is currently “only” around £200 for 2 nights (Friday – Sunday), which isn’t too bad
I suppose it is similar to airlines. The closer you get to taking off, the higher the incentive to sell your tickets sky high.
1) Your plane is taking off with or without the last seat sold
2) If somebody wants it, the closer you get to take off the higher the chance it is more urgent for them than you (as airline) .. hence they will pay more money for it
3) So it is not true prices will get cheaper close to take off as the airline tries to fill the planeI suppose the same can be said of hotels.
A hotel in Waterloo would be cheaper. They’ll make their mind up one day. Save all your kisses for the maids.
Ding-a-dong you Diva! Sounds like you’re all just puppets on their strings.
Maybe 2024 will have better rates… What’s another year?@yonasl is on the money. If hotels (and airlines) reducing their prices everytime to get the hotel full, everyone would just book last minute. They save those last spots for people who really need to be there, and as such are willing to pay a premium. For hotels it’s even worst than airlines, because they have many more customers with refundable tariffs, so everyone would just cancel and rebook the day before their stay.
Some businesses don’t have enough staff to run at 100% currently and sensibly throttle back to ensure they can cope.
The HI ia currently available for an average of £130 / night for tomorrow and saturday.
HI? Is that Holiday Inn?
I’ve been busy the last few hours, only just looked and it’s £292 night in Liverpool City Centre.
Oh maybe my initial post was confusing. We booked in Manchester but was hoping prices in Liverpool would drop.
Luckily one of us going is teetotal as with the train strike we’ve now hired a car…. at a really good rate with Avis, so a free 2nd driver and Avios points!
@yonasl is on the money. If hotels (and airlines) reducing their prices everytime to get the hotel full, everyone would just book last minute. They save those last spots for people who really need to be there, and as such are willing to pay a premium. For hotels it’s even worst than airlines, because they have many more customers with refundable tariffs, so everyone would just cancel and rebook the day before their stay.
This. If you drop prices and sell one extra room, but 15 bookings promptly rebook themselves cheaper then you were indeed better off with an empty room.
A hotel in Waterloo would be cheaper. They’ll make their mind up one day. Save all your kisses for the maids.
Ding-a-dong you Diva! Sounds like you’re all just puppets on their strings.
Maybe 2024 will have better rates… What’s another year?We need to remember the hotels want ooh ah! just a little bit, ooh ah! just a little bit more revenue for their rooms when demand is high.
Oh maybe my initial post was confusing. We booked in Manchester but was hoping prices in Liverpool would drop.
Luckily one of us going is teetotal as with the train strike we’ve now hired a car…. at a really good rate with Avis, so a free 2nd driver and Avios points!
Yes the HI I looked at was in Manchester
Hotels in Birmingham when Springsteen is in town are £300+ for bargain basement. 10 mins up the road, it’s normal prices.
I’m going to a gig in Glasgow in a few weeks the same night as Muse are playing a huge concert there and hotel prices are ridiculous for that night
Clearly Michael Buble doesn’t have the same pull as prices at the CP Glasgow the other weekend were quite reasonable (we weren’t there for the concert but a lot of people were!)
Oh maybe my initial post was confusing. We booked in Manchester but was hoping prices in Liverpool would drop.
Luckily one of us going is teetotal as with the train strike we’ve now hired a car…. at a really good rate with Avis, so a free 2nd driver and Avios points!
Hi Philondon, can you share any details of the Avis?
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