Over Half of Tourist and Business Travellers Book Hotels in the Wrong Location

Tourist and business travellers frequently make reservations for hotels online only to discover that they are located too far from amenities, attractions, or event centres. The findings are gleaned from more than three months of ongoing research by the team behind the website Staycloser.com. According to staycloser.com founder Greg Scowen, over half of the surveyed hotel reviews indicate that the location of the hotel was unsuitable.

While evaluating a hotel reservation site questionnaire that asked users what reasons they had for not booking hotels online, an interesting pattern emerged. Aside from expected security and value concerns, the most frequent response was location issues. Users found it too hard to find hotels where they needed them. Using this finding as a starting point, staycloser.com surveyed hotel reviews across a range of websites including TripAdvisor.com, ciao.co.uk, and hotelinspector.com. The findings revealed that more than 50% of all negative hotel reviews are centred on location issues. To overcome the difficulties involved in booking accommodation in the right location, staycloser.com has launched a website providing interactive hotel maps.

A representative of the Accor Group of hotels, whose brands include Sofitel, Novotel, and Mercure, states that alongside price and features “location is one of the three most important factors in selecting a hotel”. Staycloser.com provides users with the ability to book a hotel in the right location through the integration of Google’s mapping technology and a hotel booking engine. This enables visitors to see all of the hotels in a given location along with prices and reviews. The advantage of using the staycloser.com service is that guests can avoid disappointment by selecting the hotel that is most suited to their location, price and feature needs. Hotels also stand to benefit through a reduction of unfavourable reviews that are based on location alone. “I think a website with interactive maps showing the locations of hotels is a great idea” added Reid.

Staycloser.com was launched in 2007 to provide consumers with interactive maps of hotels to assist in tourist and business reservations. The site offers maps of the whole world, with hotel reservations available in 115 countries (18 of which currently are marked on maps), and more than 27,500 hotels.

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If you would like more information on this topic, or to schedule an interview with Greg Scowen, please call on +64 21 9966 42 or e-mail Greg at greg@staycloser.com