Ubid Offers to Help Hotels Hurt by Youth Day Shortfall – For Free!

Sydney hotels left with thousands of empty rooms for the six-day World Youth Day less than two weeks away are being invited to list their accommodation for free on the world-first website Ubid4rooms.com.

“Empty rooms mean revenue lost forever but via our unique booking engine, hotels left empty by a major shortfall in World Youth Day visitors can benefit from controlled discounts that fill their rooms,” said Ubid4rooms Managing Director and hotel industry veteran Gary Berman.

“Hoteliers can certainly pray for a miracle in terms of large volumes of extra visitors from overseas and interstate,” Mr Berman said, “but we’re inviting hotels hurt by this serious issue to stimulate interest by listing their rooms on our website for free and allowing people to offer reasonable bids that can help turn a very bad scenario into an okay one.”

Many Sydney hotels have been left with thousands of unsold rooms during the World Youth Day festival from July 15-20 following a huge drop in the number of tourists expected to visit the city. Compounding the issue is a reluctance by many domestic tourists to stay in Sydney during the event because of predicted disruptions, particularly surrounding the visit by Pope Benedict.

Sydney’s Four Seasons Hotel GM Stephen Lewis told The Mole that WYD was a disaster for the better hotels in the city with occupancy suffering dramatically as a result, adding it was even more galling that the NSW Government had pumped millions into the event instead of some serious marketing campaigns.

The unique Ubid4rooms.com site allows people to make their own offers for hotel rooms around Australia at prices around one third lower than reduced ‘last minute’ rates.

Aiming to revolutionise online accommodation bookings, Ubid4rooms.com has already quadrupled the number of hotels on its site since its launch last November, with travellers now able to bid for rooms at more than 200 hotels, resorts, apartments, B&Bs and holiday units around Australia and New Zealand plus Vanuatu and the Cook Islands. More properties are being added to the website daily.

The unique e-bay-like system allows people to offer a bid for a room up to 14 days in advance, with booking confirmation provided within three hours. But unlike e-bay, bidders make an offer directly to a hotel and don’t compete against other people. Bidders can also send offers to up to three properties at once, with hotels then competing against each other for business.

Sydney hotels, or any accommodation in Australia, can self-list their rooms for bidding directly by visiting www.ubid4rooms.com

A Report by The Mole