Q – As a telecom exec for the past 11 years, I find myself on the road about 60% of the time. My secretary books nice hotels and I just follow her directions. I find that hotel rates seem to vary from city to city among similar level accommodations. Is there any data you can find that shows which specific cities in the United States are currently able to charge the highest average hotel rates. This might be interesting to others who use your sites and might help me in terms of future business planning.
A – There are several ways to look at your question but the latest real-time data comes from a major study issued by the Travel Resources division of Bookings.com, one of the largest online hotel booking sites. The new data is rather surprising but when you look at demand and availability of 4-5 star properties, it sort of makes sense. These are the cities with he current highest hotel costs. The report includes the average per night cost of hotels in all major categories:
# 1 – Detroit – $278.88 Per Night (78% higher than average cost of US hotel room)
# 2 – Washington, D.C. – $261.04 Per Night
# 3 – Long Beach, Ca. – $$261.04 Per Night
# 4 – Arlington, Va. – $235.56
# 5 – New York City – $231.90
We should also mention that if your secretary is booking your hotels by contacting them on your behalf, that is considered a “direct” booking. But unless you have demanded a refund, you have been paying the built-in travel agency commission of 8-10%. That amount should have been refunded to your credit card at check-out. Hotels will try to charge you the agency commission ever when you have not used an agency. You are entitled to a refund of that expense. In America, it is still unethical to charge individuals for services that were never provided. If you ask a hotel about this they will simply explain that we are “crazy”. But we have our sanity tested every day and we think that this is such a major consumer rip-off that it needs to be discussed.
