I’m currently writing this post from my hotel room. We arrived last night and will leave just as this post is published. I cannot stress enough the importance of reading reviews for hotels. This goes without saying for any product or service.
But, reviews are always skewed and should be appropriatly discounted. Allow me to offer the what the typical hotel reviewer might write about our experience here:
1 Star. This hotel was awful, they wouldn’t let us check in early even though I KNOW they had rooms ready for us. I mean, we only wanted to check in an hour early because it was so hot. And, while the rooms were nice, the internet was slow and the TV was fuzzy. Breakfast was terrible too. On top of that the hallways smelled weird, the provided dishes weren’t clean, and towels weren’t folded properly. I wish I could give this NO stars there’s no way I’ll ever go back!Now, let’s interpret what really happened. The hotel had no vacancy, which means every room was filled and all the employees were going to be overworked (by design, this is how all hotels operate). I spoke to an employee and they also mentioned they were short a cleaning lady. This makes the process of cleaning up rooms properly difficult. The reason the halways smelled funky was a combination of children running around from the indoor pool, and just the overal stench of people dealing with 100 degree temperatures. And finally there is the price to consider. People always take this for granted. We paid below the market rate for this hotel. While it is new and the rooms are nice, if you pay below market then you have to expect below market service. This means sometimes an unfolded towel and a crappy breakfast. Considering what we paid, we got our money’s worth of it. Dealing with small annoyances is the price you pay for saving a few bucks.
There is one last issue with hotel reviews. It is very unlikely that any of them actually told the hotel about their experiences. Service is everything in a hotel, if you get bad service they want to know about it. You may not see a discount or a refund, but if you don’t complain directly to those in charge and merely post an anonymous bad review online, then you aren’t really helping anything. I’m going to notify those in charge about our somewhat unpleasant experience, but I will also discount the circumstances. And because I still think I got what I paid for, I’m not going to post a review online at all. It was neither good nor bad.
 By The Weakonomist |
The Weakonomist is the founder of Weakonomics. Clicking the picture of the puppy will tell you more about him. If you like what you're reading consider subscribing to the blog, following him on Twitter, and checking out the related posts below. Please consider a donation if you really enjoy Weakonomics. Also keep in mind that nothing I say can be construed as financial advice. |
