Should a hotel accept guests who book for just one night?
Archive - Originally posted on "The Horse's Mouth" - 2013-07-11 09:09:37 - Graham Ellis
Do we accept bookings for single nights at Well House Manor? YES, we do; if we have a room available you are very welcome indeed.Click on image to download our in-room guest information. Or click [here] for our hotel web site
Through our appearance on "Four in a Bed", we have met with many other hoteliers who are dynamic, outgoing, forward looking, and delighted to offer superb products which they are willing to put up for the most intense of scrutiny. And we discuss issues effecting us, and our diverse businesses, around amongst the group. We will also recommend one another - away from the camera, the places on the show are all rather fabulous and rather different, even if some of their elements weren't to the liking of their harshest of critics on the show. One of our discussions has been "single night stays".
Let me tell you why the question is even asked. It's because single nights are proportionately costly to the hotel.
• Hotels do not routinely change towels, bedding and fully service rooms every day that a guest is staying with them - a "tidy" as we call it between nights for the same guest takes perhaps 15 minutes, whereas a "service" where guests are changing takes the best part of an hour, and to that you need to add the time / cost or laundry too - full set of towels, sheets, pillow cases.
• Checkin and checkout procedures are, again, one per stay and not one per night. It's a real pleasure to welcome new guests, to show them around and check them in. However, consider also the wait time - an estimate on booking of "around 7 p.m." can drift into 9 p.m., 10 p.m. or later, and that means having staff not only on duty on the first evening, but also near to reception. And checkouts... well - I have a 5 a.m. tomorrow.
• If you're running a holiday destination hotel and you take a single night booking - let's say for the Saturday night of a Bank Holiday weekend - you'll then be hard pressed to fill that room for the Friday, Sunday or Monday nights. And that's a top-notch, peak-season room. From a hotelier's viewpoint it makes commercial sense to not take such bookings, and the knife is often twisted once you have taken such a booking as you get a string of phone calls and emails for people who want to stay for the whole weekend, but who you can't accommodate because of the one night you're full.
OK - you are very welcome to book in for a single one-night stay at Well House Manor. But, please, don't expect to get your Saturday night room at a discount. We do occasionally offer slightly lower rates... but that's typically for stays which include either a Friday or Sunday night, for bookings made within a few days of the weekend in question. It's a different product to the "one-nighter", and we can pass on the cost saving we make to the guests who help save that cost.