Lisa forwarded me an email describing how travelers are booking their hotel rooms well in advance, then canceling them at the last week or so if they see a special deal or suspect one from a major chain, and rebooking at the lower price. The article went on to say how the bigger hotel chains are less worried than the smaller independents, who resent the practice.

There is a need for differential pricing at times - to fill facilities in the lower season / quiet times of day, and to maximize revenue at other times so that the books as a whole balance or make an acceptable level of profit. But my experience of many systems is that they create anomalies, they get out of hand .... and they should only be set up with extreme care. Otherwise, they end up "turning off" the customer, cause the provider to give a lower quality service to his cheaper customers, and leave the full price payers feeling very hard done by.

I've no big solution to offer. I can offer a principle which we apply that says "keep it simple, consistent, fair and easily justified" but my goodness - even in our business - there are times that it's hard to stick to your guns on such an approach.


(written 2007-11-22 23:25:32)

 M300 - Well House Manor - Behind the scenes
  [2396] Easing off in our 50s? - (2009-09-06)
  [2247] A day in the life of a hotelier - (2009-06-18)
  [2125] We have lost a regular business guest - (2009-04-10)
  [1991] Rules for a King - (2009-01-13)
  [1973] Required Request - (2009-01-03)
  [1957] Why are cooks bad tempered? - (2008-12-22)
  [1948] Blame Culture - (2008-12-17)
  [1904] Ruby, Perl, Linux, MySQL - some training notes - (2008-11-23)
  [1900] Table Topics - (2008-11-22)
  [1854] Three Seasonal Pictures - (2008-10-25)
  [1637] Providing exceptional service - and carrying on doing so. - (2008-05-09)
  [1571] Await guests in the early hours - (2008-03-12)
  [1520] Terms and Conditions - Hotel, England - plain English - (2008-01-26)
  [1515] Keeping staff up to date on hotel room status - (2008-01-22)
  [1490] Software to record day to day events and keep an action list - (2007-12-31)
  [1371] Hotel in Melksham at Christmas - (2007-09-29)
  [1369] One business, four different angles! - (2007-09-28)
  [1319] Customer feedback - lifeblood of a business - (2007-08-25)
  [1311] What do people look for on a hotel web site? - (2007-08-20)
  [1285] In the army, or in civvie street? - (2007-07-31)
  [1189] Meet, greet and welcome - (2007-05-16)
  [1179] Sizing sheets and other domestic issues - (2007-05-07)
  [1159] It can take more that one plus one to get two. - (2007-04-22)
  [1105] A week is a long time in the life of a conference centre - (2007-03-10)
  [1083] Behind the scenes - (2007-02-17)
  [1000] One Thousand Posts and still going strong - (2006-12-18)
  [951] What happened at Geekmas - (2006-11-28)
  [939] Swipe cards for hotel rooms - Security issues - (2006-11-23)
  [931] Before and After - Well House Manor - (2006-11-18)
  [927] Hotel door furniture - (2006-11-15)
  [897] Too much for the National Trust - (2006-10-18)
  [868] Smoking, or no - (2006-09-16)
  [813] Monday Morning at Well House Consultants Melksham - (2006-07-24)
  [769] King Edward VII - days of empire - (2006-06-20)
  [742] A visit from the solicitor - (2006-06-03)
  [677] Sympathetic development - (2006-04-09)
  [203] Holes in on line information - (2005-02-05)

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Looking after you Christmas Customer Crowds
Using English can slow you right down!
Christmas is coming very early
Reading a file multiple times - file pointers
On cancellations, rebooking, and pricing schemes
Useful command or messy screen?
Linux / Unix - layout of operating system files
Copy and paste / cut and paste and other vi techniques
Above the fold with First Great Western
A little touring help during a business trip to England