When booking hotels, you’ll find a large difference in off-season and peak-season prices. What surprises me is when someone gives a hotel a bad review because it wasn’t worth the price. Excuse me? You’re traveling somewhere everyone within a 100-mile radius is visiting for a weekend getaway, and you’re surprised that a La Quinta is charging double for Friday and Saturday nights than they do for the rest of the year? Really?
Get over it. That’s the free market system. If you’re willing to pay $200 for a roadside motel, don’t be surprised that you’re staying somewhere where the only advantage is being close to the beach, waterpark, mountains, or other special events.
A prime example of this phenomenon is when I look for hotels in New Braunfels, TX. Being the home of Schlitterbahn water park, and with other ways to “toob” on the river, it’s a popular place for families to visit in the summer. So you’d expect hotels to charge more for weekends. For this August, the La Quinta Inn & Suites by Wyndham New Braunfels charges $200+ for Friday and Saturday nights and just over $100 for the rest of the week.
I guarantee if you check TripAdvisor in August and September there will be reviews from guests complaining about how this hotel isn’t worth $200 a night. For a usual night, I’d agree with them.
However, if you’re staying on the weekend and everyone else in the area wants to visit New Braunfels, hotels will charge what the market will bear. And during those times, this is a $200 hotel room.
Of course, you can also stay at the Courtyard by Marriott New Braunfels if you want a better hotel.
However, you’d pay $300+ a night for a basic Courtyard by Marriott room on a summer weekend.
This is the same issue people who managed to get tickets to see Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour face. I checked and hotels near the Bay Area concert on July 28th and 29th charge 2-3 times the standard rate. Of course, that’s if you can even find a room.
Here are the prices of two hotels still selling rooms on the nights of the concert. Hotels in Silicon Valley that usually sell on the weekend for $111 charge $270 to $350 a night for the concert dates.
Do these hotels deserve bad reviews because they’re not worth $300? Of course not. They’re charging that only because they’re located within 1 mile from the stadium where the Taylor Swift concert is happening.
This rule applies to anywhere with a peak season. Key West in the summer. Ski Resorts in the winter. College towns during football season. Hotel prices will be significantly higher than the rest of the year. You’re a victim of the supply/demand curve. Don’t complain that you’re overpaying, because so is everyone else, and it’s what the market will bear. You can’t blame a hotel for hiking prices during a popular time or event.
Of course, hotel points can help because I could book the La Quinta in New Braunfels for 15,000 Wyndham Rewards points instead of paying $200+.
When will everyone learn that hotels, airlines, rental cars and every other tourist-driven business will set prices at a level that the market will support? When people stop paying, they’ll lower prices. If people keep paying, the price will remain the same.
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2 comments
I know they charge whatever they think they can get. Their shareholders expect that. So do I. But most hotels I stay at during peak times have no idea how to hit that price/supply target to maximize profit. My biggest complaint is a hotel that can (for a simple example) book out 100 rooms at $100 for $10k versus 75 rooms at $125 for $9375. If your hotel isn’t booked out, confirmable by a test booking when you arrive, you’re paying too much because they’re not competent and maximizing profit. And if status gets you an upgrade during peaks season, same issue. That’s when I gripe. Because their stupidity costs me more money. Don’t you gripe about that too?
Las Vegas is a prime example of wildly varying rates. Sure, it’s no fun forking out the extra cash but why would a hotel offer lower rates during a more popular time?