Luxury Hotel Reservations
Online Hotel Reservations
Online hotel reservation is becoming a very
popular method for booking hotel rooms. Travelers can book rooms
from home, using online security to protect their privacy and
financial information, and using several online travel agents to
compare prices and faciities at different hotels.
...
Online hotel reservations are also helpful for making last minute
travel arrangements. Hotels may drop the price of a room if some
rooms are still available. There are several websites that specialize
in searches for deals on rooms.
Hotels face several challenges in selling online directly to consumers.
There are numerous electronic distribution "channels", and connecting
to them, then managing the room inventory and rates to be offered online
is essential.
Large hotel chains typically have direct connections to the airline
global distribution systems (GDS) (Sabre, Gallileo, Amadeus and Worldspan)
that in turn provides hotel information directly to the hundreds of
thousands of travel agents that align themselves with one of these systems.
Individual hotels and small hotel chains cannot afford the expense of these
direct connections and turn to other companies to provide the connections.
Several large online travel sites are, in effect, travel agencies. They
send the hotel's information and rates "downstream" to literally thousands
of online travel sites, most of which act as travel agents so that they can
receive commission payments from the hotels for any business booked on their
websites.
Lastly (oddly enough), persons can book directly on an individual hotel's
website. An increasing number of hotels are building their own websites to
allow them to market their hotels directly on the web. Non-franchise chain
hotels require a "booking engine" application to be attached to their website
to permit persons to book rooms real time.
To improve the likelihood of filling rooms, hotels tend to use several of the
above systems. The content on many hotel reservation systems is becoming
increasingly similar as all the hotels sign up to all the sites. Companies thus
have to rely on specially negotiated rates with the hotels or hotel chains, or
trust in the influence of search engine rankings to draw in customers.
The ultimate service provided by these companies to the hotels and the online
consumer, is that they provide a single database from which all reservation
sources draw immediate room availability and rates. It is very important that
hotels integrate with all the supply channels so that their guests are able to
make accurate online bookings.
Excerpt from Excerpt from "Online hotel reservations." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
3 Jul 2006, 14:22 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 8 Jul 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Online_hotel_reservations&oldid=61850886 Luxury Hotels
A luxury hotel is a is a very expensive
establishment that provides paid lodging, usually on a
short-term basis. Luxury hotels provide always exceptional
restaurants, top beauty facilities, a swimming pool and a
perfect spa. The Restaurants are often specialised in certain
types of food or present a certain unifying, and often
entertaining, theme. For example, luxury hotels offering
mostly a selection of seafood restaurants, vegetarian
restaurants and local/ foreign (ethnic) restaurants.
A luxury hotel is an elite luxury property which exhibits
an exceptionally high degree of customer service and
hospitality. A flawless execution of guest services will
be the hotels staff's and managements main concern. A luxury
hotel will commonly also feature a superb architectural
interior and exterior design as well as an interesting
physical location. (eg. the Burj al-Arab hotel in Dubai,
United Arab Emirates, is built on an artificial island and
structured in the shape of a sail of a boat).
A luxury hotel may vary greatly in character, style and theme
from hotel to hotel. A luxury hotel will, however, normally be
characterized by a high level of luxury, sophistication and off
course price. Accommodations are first class, whether they
follow a classic and traditional nature or a more minimalist and
modern styling. An unmatched level of comfort will be available
at a luxury hotel, as well as many personalized services and
amenities.
Luxury hotels are often based in exceptionally desirable and
strategic worldwide locations, from beautiful tropical islands,
to snow caked mountains, to scenic lakes and rivers, to
exhilarating cities.
An incomplete list of luxury hotel:
- Park Hyatt in Tokio, Japan
- Hotel George V in Paris, France
- Hotel Adlon Kempinski in Berlin, Germany
- Burj al-Arab in Dubai, United Arab Emirates
- The Oriental in Bangkok, Thailand
- Four Seasons Resort Bali at Jimbaran Bay in Bali, Indonesia
- Halekulani in Honolulu (Ohau), Hawaii
- Four Seasons Resort in Wailea (Maui), Hawaii
- The Peninsula in Hong Kong
- The Inn at Spanish Bay in Pebble Beach, California
- Ritz-Carlton in Chicago, Illinois
Hotel Classification
Stars are often used as symbols for classification
purposes. In particular, a set of one to five stars is employed to
categorize hotels.
Standards of classification
In some countries, there is an official body with standard criteria
for classifying hotels, but in many others there is none. There have
been attempts at unifying the classification system so that it becomes
an internationally recognized and reliable standard but large differences
exist in the quality of the accommodation and the food within one
category of hotel, sometimes even in the same country.
A "five star hotel"
However, regardless of what public or private agency performs the
classification, the term five star hotel is always associated with
the ultimate luxury (and, by implication, expense). The lack of
standardisation has allowed marketing-driven inflation, with some
hotels claiming six stars;
...
General meaning of rating by stars
The five categories can be described (loosely) as follows:
- * (one star) — low budget hotel; inexpensive; may not have maid
service or room service.
- ** (two stars) — budget hotel; slightly more expensive; usually
has maid service daily.
- *** (three stars) — middle class hotel; moderately priced; has
daily maid service, room service, and may have dry-cleaning, Internet
access, and a swimming pool.
- **** (four stars) — first class hotel; expensive (by middle-class
standards); has all of the previously mentioned services; has many
"luxury" services (for example: massages or a health spa).
- ***** (five stars) — luxury hotel; most expensive hotels/resorts
in the world; numerous extras to enhance the quality of the client's
stay (for example: some have private golf courses and even a small
private airport).
The AAA and their affiliated bodies use diamonds instead of stars to
express hotel and restaurant ratings levels.
Traditional systems rest heavily on the facilities provided, which is
often disadvantageous to smaller hotels whose quality of accommodation
could fall into one class but the lack of an item such as an elevator
would prevent it from reaching a higher categorization.
Excerpt from "Star (classification)." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
29 Oct 2006, 11:55 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 30 Oct 2006
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Star_%28classification%29&oldid=84407085
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