Three Oregon hotels have taken the route of asking guests to name their own price.
“The approach gives the hotels an alternative to web sites such as Priceline.com, which has been letting people bid on hotel sites since 1998,” said the Associated Press.
The Resort at the Mountain in Welches recently joined two other independent hotels, the Salishan Lodge and Resort, and the Valley River in Eugene that invite people to bid on rooms using the hotels web sites.
Todd Iseri, director of sales and marketing for the Valley River Inn, said it used to book about 15 rooms a month through Priceline for about $30 each. Now, the inn receives five bids a day on its web site and approves two, he said, averaging 64 reservations a month.
The name-your-price program appears to be largely confined to Oregon, said Daniel Connolly of the University of Denver School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Management.
He said he knew of only one other resort using that strategy, in Wisconsin.
Report by David Wilkening
