Saturday, April 7, 2012

IT'S REALLY NOT THE BRAND

The results are in for BHN’s first hotel opinion survey, covering the likes, dislikes and preferences of hotel insiders. More than 1,000 hotel insiders from around the world responded to the survey, and here are their opinions.

Location, Location, Location
What is the first consideration when choosing a hotel when traveling for personal reasons? 61% say location. Logical, but we thought brand affiliation might be more important since we were polling hotel industry insiders. Actually, price was identified the second most frequently (18%), followed closely by brand affiliation (17%), and amenities (5%).

Is Online Really Out-of-Line?

Despite the rancor about Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), 63% of our insider respondents have used an online booking service such as Hotels.com or Expedia to purchase a hotel room for personal travel over the past year. For business travel, this number drops to 45%, no doubt due to corporate and other business relationships of the respondents.

It’s Not the Bed, It’s the WiFi

In an earlier survey we were told that Wi-Fi was the most desirable amenity in a hotel room. Well, it is also the most annoying amenity – when one has to pay for it or it doesn’t work well. 42% of respondents noted slow WiFi as the most annoying thing in a hotel room. Coupled with a number of open-ended responses about price, difficulty, or lack of – WiFi is the winner – or is it the loser? The second most annoying thing noted in a hotel room was poor lighting (17%), followed in a cluster by slow room service, no coffee maker, mini bar prices, and no place for luggage (all 5-6%). In the open ended responses, lack of power outlets and dirty rooms led the “annoying” responses.

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