Hotels Test Custom Room Rates That Appeal to Guest Tastes
Photo Caption: The outdoor pool at the Hotel Indigo Bangkok Wireless Road, part of IHG, which has been slowly adopting attribute-based booking. Source: IHG Hotel & Resorts.
Skift Take
Hotels have talked about attribute-based selling for years. Yet a new study gives more support to the concept, where a traveler chooses perks, such as a view from a high floor, to get a bundled price upfront.
If you've ever shopped on a hotel's own website for a room, you may have seen vague descriptions like "standard," "deluxe," and "premium" — along with photos that may or may not represent the amenities and traits of the particular guest room you'll stay in. The vagueness causes confusion, which is why many hotel executives are talking about moving to a more customized booking process.
In a new survey, 85 percent of respondents found the traditional method of booking hotel rooms created "uncertainty." The study of 1,000 U.S. travelers was released last week by the New York University School of Professional Studies Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality (NYU) and was sponsored by software maker Stayntouch.
Some hoteliers are testing a booking process called attribute-based pricing. In this approach, a traveler picks the things t
