Study shows where to look for cheapest hotel room rates, availability

By Linda Myers

If you're looking for the best hotel room deal and are confused by what's out there on the Internet, a new study points the way to the best prices and the most up-to-date information on available rooms.

The researchers are Gary Thompson, a professor at Cornell's School of Hotel Administration and director of its Center for Hospitality Research (CHR), and Alexandra Failmezger, a graduate student at the Hotel School. Their study, "Why Customers Shop Around: A Comparison of Hotel Room Rates and Availability Across Booking Channels," is posted online and is accessible at no charge to those who sign up at the CHR Web site: http://www.chr.cornell.edu.

The study found that hotel chains have made considerable progress in fulfilling their goal of offering lowest-cost last-room availability on their own Web sites, in competition with sites operated by third parties Travelocity, Orbitz and Expedia. However, a check of 137 possible booking dates in four different hotel market types -- luxury, upscale, midmarket and budget -- also revealed that the third-party providers, notably Travelocity, still frequently offer the lowest rates. In addition, booking on a hotel chain's Web site or a third party's Web site yields lower rates than telephoning the hotel, the study showed.

But calling the hotel is the best way to get accurate room availability (calling the hotel turned up available rooms 95.6 percent of the time) -- followed by consulting hotel chain Web sites 94.2 percent. Third-party Web sites, on the other hand, did dismally, reporting in many instances that rooms at a given rate weren't available, when they actually were through other channels. Under that measure, Expedia performed poorest, failing to list a property or reporting no available rooms 29.2 percent of the time.

The study's findings demonstrate the relative consistency of the hotel chains' own Web sites in offering customers the lowest rates, say the researchers. But customers who shop around may find even lower rates on some third-party sites.

The researchers recommend that hotel chains work to maintain consistent room rates on their Web sites and third-party sites. When customers learn the price is the same everywhere, they may prefer to book rooms on hotel chain sites with loyalty-program benefits.