Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Hotel Reservations Work

thecodist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 47 posts

Re: How Hotel Reservations Work

#21

Post by coditor »

xoail wrote: post #5
nlh wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also there's a consumer-perception / branding effect going on with too-cheap pricing too. If I know I can call the local Four Seasons at the last minute and get a room for $75 then I'm going to be much less willing to pay $500 the next time - even if I "know" I got a special deal ("Well can't you make me a special deal again?"). That's where services like HotelTonight make the properties very happy - they fill the ro…

Its not only Hotel Tonight that does that, even priceline's negotiator, hotwire's hot deals and travelocity's last minute discounts. It wasn't something new that HotelTonight tried, but by creating an app for a narrow vertical 'discount rooms for tonight', they attracted lot of people's attention.

The problem with HT is that it can't do enough volume to actually build a profitable business. It's primary customer is someone bigger to buy them out.

Re: How Hotel Reservations Work

#22

Post by rubyrescue »

smtm wrote: post #17
patio11 wrote: post #4

Hotel yield management is about a decade or so behind the airlines, but they're catching up, so this is probably going to get a bit harder from the OTA's/customer's perspectives before it gets easier. (Yield management means the art/science of room pricing such that you sell out nearly all of your inventory while maximizing profits. It has gotten radically more sophisticated over the years -- loyalty programs, for ex…

yield management is the exercise you do when your - the individual hotel's - distribution system is set up perfectly and humming along. The biggest gains for hotels happen actually when they set their mind to it that they want to shift the source of their business away from the OTAs to more direct business: direct can be the online booking tool on their own hotel website, mails, repeat customers, phone calls. yes eve…

who is your typical customer?

Re: How Hotel Reservations Work

#23

Post by MrQuincle »

It would be nice to know which systems just hand over your creditcard information to the hotel owner (plus even the 3-number validation number), such as booking.com, and which do not, such as hostelbookers.com.

Re: How Hotel Reservations Work

#24

Post by jordn »

I realise this isn't quite your area but I'd really love to know how far in practice hotel managers take the idea that "a room with guests paying anything is better than an empty room". Do they typically offer significant discounts to bring in last minute guests? How does this works in practice?

I suspect there's a whole lot more to it and it's probably quite a delicate balance between capacity maximisation and less tangible qualities like the brand reputation and what effect any visibility of discounts can have on normal full-price paying customers.

I believe this is (supposedly) the idea behind hotwire. That the hotels want to fill their beds by offering them at a discount but don't want their regular customers to take advantage of it - so they disguise their identity. Anyone know any more? (or why it doesn't seem much cheaper than other OTAs that name the hotels?)

Thanks for the insights!

Re: How Hotel Reservations Work

#25

Post by bsimpson »

Sounds like this would be a great market for a company like Hipmunk, Adioso, or Square to develop an app targeted at indie hotels.

If I'm Hipmunk and I'm running into the sort of issues described in this post (people w/o computers using fax machines to manage reservations and making me look bad when I misquote a customer because of it), I build a best of breed tablet app that electronically keeps track of all the complexity the little guys use paper for. It syncs with my cloud so I always have the most current information, and it integrates with my competitors too to make sure that no hotel has any reason to keep me from having the most current information.

Then, I start a rollout program where I'll send your hotel a free tablet /w the app preinstalled in exchange for $500 worth of booking credits at your location. I target the hotels in the most popular areas that currently give me the least accurate data.

Re: How Hotel Reservations Work

#26

Post by socrates1998 »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #13
Evbn wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why on earth would you want to sell out all rooms as a goal?

I must be missing something here. How does an empty room make any money?

I first realized this concept on much simpler level. In college, my older friend and I were slowing waking up after a very successful party. There was one beer left. And I said, "That would perfect if we had zero beer left". He replied, "No, one beer is perfect. It means everyone got enough. If there were zero then that means someone could have tried to get a beer after we ran out. With one left, we know that everyone got exactly as much as they wanted."

Re: How Hotel Reservations Work

#27

Post by melvinmt »

bsimpson wrote: post #25

Sounds like this would be a great market for a company like Hipmunk, Adioso, or Square to develop an app targeted at indie hotels. If I'm Hipmunk and I'm running into the sort of issues described in this post (people w/o computers using fax machines to manage reservations and making me look bad when I misquote a customer because of it), I build a best of breed tablet app that electronically keeps track of all the com…

Sounds like a plan!

Re: How Hotel Reservations Work

#28

Post by [deleted] »

jordn wrote: post #24

I realise this isn't quite your area but I'd really love to know how far in practice hotel managers take the idea that "a room with guests paying anything is better than an empty room". Do they typically offer significant discounts to bring in last minute guests? How does this works in practice? I suspect there's a whole lot more to it and it's probably quite a delicate balance between capacity maximisation and less…

[deleted]

Re: How Hotel Reservations Work

#29

Post by hondje »

MrQuincle wrote: post #23

It would be nice to know which systems just hand over your creditcard information to the hotel owner (plus even the 3-number validation number), such as booking.com, and which do not, such as hostelbookers.com.

Booking.com is the biggest that does, all the Big OATs don't pass on your info.

Re: How Hotel Reservations Work

#30

Post by hondje »

themckman wrote: post #7

This is a pretty good read. I REALLY hate booking both air travel and hotel rooms as I ALWAYS get the feeling that I'm getting fucked. It always just feels like I know someone is getting the same room on the same night or the same flight for cheaper than me. I never feel like I've won, so to speak. When booking air travel, if I can, I like to book with Southwest just because it feels better. I may be able to get a ch…

Get a govt id or something that looks legit (most clerks don't want to piss you off during check in). Almost all of the big chains set their lowest rates to match CONUS rates or a certain amount over it and its almost always their best rate. I don't understand feeling fucked though, if you feel bad / can't afford an extra 10-20% over their lowest possible rate you should just stay at a discount chain. Some of them are a pretty good value, like the MicroTel chain
Post reply on HN