A Cornell University study found travel Web sites often offer the lowest hotel room rates, but chains are increasingly using their own sites to meet the goal of offering consistently lower prices.
The report published by The Center for Hospitality Research at Cornell sampled rates and availability for 137 possible booking dates in four different hotel segments.
Key findings:
• Hotel chains have made considerable progress in offering lowest-cost, last-room availability on their own Web sites compared with sites operated by third parties such as Travelocity.
• Telephoning the hotel is still the most accurate channel for finding room availability.
• Chain Web sites were determined to be reasonably good at ensuring availability, “while travel Web sites, notably Expedia, often showed rooms as unavailable at a given rates, when in fact the room was available through other channels,” said the report.
Said co-author Gary Thompson:
“The findings demonstrate the consistency of the hotel chain Web sites in offering customers the lowest rate, but the fact remains that customers who shop around may find even lower rates.”
Report by David Wilkening
