Price Revision in Hotel Industry

The price revisions on hotel rates are welcome for inbound business but it is not enough. Indian hotels are one of the most expensive in the world, we are more expensive compared to US, Europe and very very expensive compared to South East Asia. There are no proper tourism associations or councils taking upon this hotels seriously.

Our hotels in good times love corporate business and at recession or bad times there focus changes to travel agents, this applies to most of the destinations except Kerala and Goa to a large extent. I have lost lot of business when hotel quoted to my corporate directly cutting the new age travel entrepreneurs commission. We need to regulate this market as agents. Once I was quoting for a group conference to Thailand after I got my contracts with tour operator, the corporate client started negotiating with the hotel directly and they gave little bit higher rates but had put an condition booking has to be routed through an supplier who is member of Association of Thailand Travel Agents. This was a great set back to my client and he did complete event and conference through me. This kind of loyalty is missing in India. On a long run and difficult times hotel loses lot of business.

An average three star hotel in Bangalore still charges atleast USD 50 per room and which is not a great quality, the same in Ibis Pattaya costs less then 30USD with great chic interiors, international quality, LCD TV, swimming pool etc. It is an absolute value deal to drive traffic. Hotels needs to invest lot of their money into PR with tour operators, travel agency and come out with innovative deals to do business. Being loyal to tour operators is also an important factor to

sustain business in difficult times. Hotel Sales Managers in India have very limited decision making authority and they work on run of mill trade practice.

Rgds, Anil Kumar Prasanna email : dreamdez@gmail.com