Hotels - The seasonal ups-and-downs of hotel rates in New York

My travel business is focused on booking hotel rooms for business travelers.  In dollar volume if not also in number of room-nights, I've booked more in New York than in any other single location.

Highline Park - lower East Side

Over the years I've noticed a distinct seasonality to prices there.  For travelers to New York who want to keep the cost of lodging low, and who have the flexibility of traveling at any time, it's useful to know the seasons of lower priced hotel rooms in this remarkable city.






Here's a month-by-month summary.

January - lowest
February - lowest
March - lowest but starts to rise mid-month and beyond
April -  high
May - highest
June - highest but drops as the month goes on
July - lower
August - lower
September - after Labor Day prices zoom
October - highest
November - highest
December - highest until a week or so before Christmas then lowest (except New Year's Eve)

New York is a destination for all reasons, but like most big cities except for glaring exceptions like Las Vegas and Orlando, lodging demand is driven by business travel.

In the winter, business travel subsides and leisure travel in New York slows to a crawl.  In the spring and in the fall, business travel is very high.  In summer business travel declines which leads to somewhat lower rates in New York, too.  This is partly offset by increased leisure travel but these travelers aren't willing to spend as much on accommodations as business travelers are, and prices reflect that.  As in other destinations driven primarily by business travel, rates are generally higher for weeknights (Sunday-Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday) and lower for weekend nights (Friday-Saturday).

Let's go from the general to the specific using three different hotels as examples:
- Hampton Inn Times Square South (moderately priced hotel)
- New York Hilton (upscale, huge Midtown hotel)
- The Plaza (luxury hotel on Central Park South at Fifth Avenue)

Rates below are per night before tax for three weeknights in a standard room with king bed.  The rate is what is called "best available rate".  Lower rates such as AAA or senior may apply, but these discounts are taken off "best available rate".  (Rates were researched on 16 April 2014.)

28 April 2014
Hampton Inn: $289
New York Hilton: $349
The Plaza: $700

22 July 2014
Hampton Inn: $269
Hilton New York: $349
The Plaza: $625 

14 October 2014
Hampton Inn: $359
Hilton New York: $469
The Plaza: $775 

13 January 2015
Hampton Inn: $179
Hilton New York: $249
The Plaza: $650

While not as volatile as airline ticket prices, hotel rates are also dynamic.  The price for a room booked three months in advance may be different (higher or lower) when booked closer to the actual date of travel.  Take these prices merely as a random snapshot example of the seasonality of the rates, and not as a bronze, immovable tablet.

And then go take a big bite of the Big Apple.  There's no other city quite like it.

Hotels - TrustYou.com

If you are like many other travelers, you have looked at consumer-written hotel reviews when you were planning a trip in order to get a sense of where you wanted to stay.

The best known of the consumer review sites is TripAdvisor, but Google, Hotels.com, Expedia, Facebook, Yelp, and many others can be sources of guest reviews.

The reviews you read can run the gamut from abysmal to stratospherically good, but the sheer volume of information can overwhelm a reader.

TrustYou aggregates and crunches reviews from multiple sources, and then offers a brief, mostly numbers-driven summary.

TrustYou presents an overall score (the "TrustScore") up to 100, assigns a grade (Excellent, Very Good, Good, Mediocre, Bad) and then supplies percentages (good or bad) for specific features such as location, rooms, service, food, bar, internet, etc. under a "Tops & Flops" heading.

When you want detailed reviews about a specific hotel property then you'll need to read the individual consumer reviews (or ask other travelers or a travel agent), but if you are looking for a sense of a hotel's overall score on the most important features, then give TrustYou a look.

To get a sense of the difference between TrustYou and TripAdvisor, take a look at the TripAdvisor review and the TrustYou "TrustScore" for the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

TrustYou makes money by providing reputation management tools to hotels.

Hotels - El Encanto arises


There is only one hotel with which I have had an emotional connection since I was a very small child: the El Encanto in Santa Barbara.  To say it is a special place for me, would be an immense understatement.

Though I'm not certain of the exact years, I figure my association with the El Encanto began around 1957 or 1958.   My mother took me and my brother on the train (Southern Pacific's Coast Daylight) from San Jose to Santa Barbara, where we would spend a week at the El Encanto with Aunt Minna.  (This also was the beginning of my fondness for trains.)

Aunt Minna and me at the El Encanto, circa 1958

You see, my mother's Aunt Minna lived in Los Angeles and every summer she would come up to Santa Barbara to spend several weeks at the El Encanto.

My brother Ken, nine years older than I, came with us until he was around 14 or 15.  At his age, he got more liberty to roam Santa Barbara on his own.  (He remembers catching the city bus that stops right below the hotel - and still does - to get down to Stearns Wharf and go fishing.)

My guess is that this week away from responsibility for my mother (other than keeping an eye on me) was a gift from Minna to my mother.

We would either take the train back to San Jose, or if my father could get off work, he would come down for a day or two and then we would drive back.

How my Aunt Minna became familiar with the El Encanto I don't know, but I wonder if it had anything to do with the fact that at that time it seemed to be popular with Germans.  My recollection is that hearing German there during this period was not uncommon.  Minna's English was heavily accented, and she occasionally switched from German to English midsentence.  No problem for my mother who was also German, but it could leave my father, my brother, and me scratching our heads.



1950s postcard (this pool no longer exists)

I'm pretty sure that our last trip to Santa Barbara and the El Encanto was in the summer of 1963. Aunt Minna died in the spring of 1965, and the connections with the hotel then became sporadic. I remember staying there once in September 1975 prior to attending UC Santa Barbara, and then bringing my partner Keith there for a tour of the grounds and a drink in early 1998. It's always been a place to come back to and reminisce about.

Let's skip a few decades to the 2000s. Ownership of the hotel changed hands numerous times over the years, but in 2003 then current owner, local resident Eric Friden, died in a polo accident.  El Encanto was acquired by Orient-Express, the owner of luxury rail services and hotels mostly outside of North America.

After operating El Encanto for two years, Orient-Express closed it in 2006 to embark on a what would become a major project of renovations more extensive than even they foresaw initially. It turned into a saga involving disputes between the hotel's owner and the neighbors over the extent and nature of the renovations, and then financing issues. After an injection of capital late in 2011, the project was back on track, and construction has been proceeding rapidly ever since.  (A note about nomenclature.  Orient-Express dropped use of "the" prior to "El Encanto" so from here on out I am doing the same.  It makes sense considering that "el" means "the" in Spanish.)

Because I have mostly worked in the travel industry, and because I love Santa Barbara, and this hotel for its own sake and for its personal memories, I have kept a close eye on it for many years including during the long period of its closure.  I was excited to read earlier this year that the hotel was at last planning to reopen in 2013.

Me about 54 years later on my hard-hat tour

Ellen Thornton, director of sales for El Encanto, was kind enough to give me a very extensive inside/outside hard hat tour of the property when I visited Santa Barbara in mid-October.  In many ways, the hotel will be brand new when it reopens, but nearly all of the buildings - both the bungalows and larger buildings - will be intact.

The interiors of the rooms and bungalows will be stunning in a way that is technologically contemporary, yet in keeping with the classic period when El Encanto was constructed.  It will not be not over the top and trendy, and thus consequently out of date in fifteen years.

One thing that so impressed me about the project is how Orient-Express addressed the main building.  One of the first buildings of the original El Encanto, the intention was to simply renovate it along with the other buildings.  They quickly realized that the bones of the building just would not permit them to do what they needed to do to bring it up to current standards.  What they did is design and erect a new main building that from the outside looks identical to the original.

Destinations - Santa Barbara: West Beach and East Beach hotels

Santa Barbara, like most California beach cities, can be a challenging place to find reasonably priced accommodations.  However if you pick your dates carefully, and consider some of the less splashy properties in the West Beach and East Beach areas, you may be surprised.

Cabrillo Boulevard runs along the beach in Santa Barbara.  It's a beautiful, palm lined promenade.  State Street, downtown Santa Barbara's main drag ends at Cabrillo, though in a sense it continues over the water to become Stearns Wharf.

To the west of State Street is the area known as West Beach.  To the east of State Street is East Beach.

The greater number of hotels is found in the West Beach area, both along Cabrillo Boulevard and on the side streets behind Cabrillo.  But two of the largest are found in East Beach: Fess Parker's DoubleTree and the Hyatt Santa Barbara (known for decades and up until recently as the Hotel Mar Monte).

East Beach Grill

Prices run the gamut, but in general those on Cabrillo Boulevard (and therefore facing the beach) are more expensive, than the ones on the side streets behind Cabrillo.  For example, the original Motel 6 (which I wrote about in my previous post) is a tidy affair located one short block behind the Hyatt Santa Barbara.

Here are links to two Google Maps I created that plot the locations of most of the hotels and motels:

West Beach
East Beach

Now reasonable prices are a relative thing in Santa Barbara.  Even the Motel 6 on a summer weekend can set you back $200 per night.  But weekday nights (Sunday-Thursday) are nearly always less expensive than Friday and Saturday nights, and the non-summer months will be lower priced than peak season.

What many people forget, even Californians, is that the weather on the coast is at its best in autumn, yet prices can drop sharply after Labor Day.  If you want to keep costs in check yet enjoy lovely weather, you should think about a midweek visit in September or October.

Franciscan Inn

On my mid-October trip I paid about $100 per night at the Franciscan Inn for a small but very nice room in an exceptionally quiet area.  All of the other motels on Bath Street where the Franciscan Inn is situated, are similarly attractive.  Even the Days Inn on adjacent (and busier) Castillo Street is well-kept.

For visitors coming to Santa Barbara by train, the West Beach area is walking distance close to the Amtrak station.  If you have just one wheely-type suitcase per person, you can easily walk from the depot to any of the West Beach hotels in 5 minutes, 10 at most.  (To East Beach hotels you'll need to take a taxi.)


Train 777 leaving Santa Barbara headed north

Speaking of transportation, Santa Barbara is a city that is pretty easy to get around without a car, and they promote it at the Santa Barbara Car Free website.  And if you arrive car-less like I did, but want to rent a car just for a day or two it's easy: Avis is located close to the train station, and Hertz (which I used) has an agency at the DoubleTree Hotel.

There aren't a lot of restaurants in the immediate area but the lower part of State Street (on the other side of 101) has plenty, or if you have a car you can drive a short distance up to the residential Mesa area for a good selection of non-tourist eats.  And two blocks staggering distance from the Franciscan Inn is the Brewhouse Santa Barbara with a large selection of its own brews and pub food.  (I enjoyed a tasty IPA during their happy hour.)

Santa Barbara is justly renowned for its high-end hotels.  And in fact, my next post will be about one of those that is soon to reopen after years of closure.  But if you pick your dates and hotel wisely, you can visit this most beautiful of California destinations without spending a fortune.

What follows is a selection of photos of some of the West and East Beach hotels.



Casa del Mar Inn (West Beach)

Hotel Oceana (West Beach)



Beach House Inn (West Beach)





Blue Sands Motel (East Beach)

Santa Barbara Inn (East Beach)

The East Beach Cottages (vrbo.com property # 79543)

Harbor House (West Beach)

 



Hyatt Santa Barbara (East Beach)



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Destinations - Bakersfield holiday at the Padre Hotel

You're thinking that this is going to a mean-spirited jab at a city that in the words of Rodney Dangerfield, "don't get no respect", but you would be wrong.

A couple of months ago one of my clients asked me to book him a night at the the Padre Hotel in Bakersfield.  Since I'd never heard of the Padre Hotel, I asked him for details.  My clients can be a great source of information about hotels I might never hear of or get to see.  He told me that it was an old hotel, totally renovated, with a modern vibe and a fine selection of ways to eat and drink.  Intrigued, I did further research on the hotel's website and decided I wanted to see for myself.

A long-planned early May trip to Fresno to visit friends lent itself well for an extension, so it was, "Bakersfield, here we come!".

First the nickel history of the hotel.

Opened in 1928 as the grand hotel and tallest building in downtown Bakersfield, the Padre changed hands in 1954 and was acquired by Milton "Spartacus" Miller.  Quite the colorful character, Miller became embroiled in a fight with the city over fire safety, and placed a phony missle on the hotel's roof allegedly aimed at city hall.  After 1966, the city mandated that rooms from the third floor and above could not be sold to guests though the bar remained open.  From reading snippets of history to write this post, the Padre Hotel bar was the center of alt-Bakersfield.

Miller died in 1999, but not before a deathbed marriage that led to the hotel's ownership being tied up in litigation until 2001.  A failed attempt to condo-ize the Padre led to its being acquired in 2008 by Eat.Drink.Sleep of San Diego.  Eat.Drink.Sleep poured money and effort into reviving the Padre to what it is now.

The hotel plays on - but does not mock -Bakersfield's reputation and reality of being kind of a Texas oilfield and cotton town dropped into California.  Room types range from the 40 Winks basic room, to the Maverick, all the way up to the Oil Baron Suite.  We were fortunate to get a Corner Pocket room on the top floor.  These are large rooms at the corners, with double windows that let in lots of light.  The bathroom was huge, and well-appointed with a rainwater shower and nice fixtures.

In addition to the rooms themselves, the hotel has five different ways you can leave money behind

Belvedere is the tony dinner restaurant.

Farmacy is a simple restaurant with made-to-order breakfasts and premade sandwiches.

Brimstone is a big ground floor bar + restaurant

Prospect is a swanky nightclub with drinks and appetizers

Prairie Fire is a second floor, rooftop bar that serves food from the same menu as Brimstone.

On Sunday evening we took advantage of a beautiful evening to enjoy a terrific blues/R&B band at Prairie Fire.  With a fine burger and a couple of Newcastles to wash it down, there was nothing not to enjoy.  And every table was taken when we left.  How many were locals and how many were hotel guests we didn't know, but it was a popular place.

The following morning we took our breakfast at Farmacy.  I think the Farmacy name is a pun on B'field's ag side, but they do push pain-killers in the form of spiked coffee so maybe that's it.  Whatever the point of the name, my breakfast was outstanding and the staff was really personable.  It's the simple format of order at the counter and your meals comes to you.

One thing was clear.  Farmacy is aimed not just at hotel guests but also locals who work in downtown because the prices were regular prices, not hotel prices.  And for a darn good meal.

This is a fine hotel that compares favorably with the Citizen Hotel in Sacramento, though in a city where you wouldn't expect to find it.

Am I suggesting that you make a special trip to Bakersfield to experience it?  Not really, unless you live in close proximity such as Fresno.  (If you travel on business to Bakersfield you definitely need to skip your loyalty program chain and experience the Padre.)

What I am suggesting however is making it a stopover on the way to or from somewhere else.

Many people make long drives between areas or cities such as the Bay Area, Sacramento, and elsewhere in northern California to southern California, Las Vegas, Arizona, and so on.  Bakersfield is a good place to break a long trip.  Even if you're taking I-5, it's only a short detour east from I-5 to Bakersfield.  And if you're on 99 the Padre Hotel is less than 2 miles from the freeway.

Oh, sure, you could stay at a forgettable chain hotel but you'd really be missing out on a chance to stay at a historic hotel restored to its former glory but with a modern pulse.  And then you'd be able to surprise your friends with the story of your own Bakersfield holiday.

Downtown Bakersfield

I can't fib and tell you that downtown Bakersfield is a dynamic hub.  Like so many American cities, it has a hollowed-out downtown from where most commerce fled long ago to the suburbs of Anywhere USA.

But it's not awful, and it didn't appear dangerous.  And where else could you find a former Woolworth's that retained the lunch counter as a restaurant while the rest of it - the basement, too - is an antique store.  (At first we thought we'd discovered the last operating Woolworth's, since from the outside it looks like nothing had changed.)

Keith with the luncheonette behind

Is it 2011 or 1961?

Westchester - neighborhood beautiful

More surprising than the former Woolworth's is a lovely neighborhood known as Westchester only a few short blocks west of the downtown.  When I write "lovely" I don't mean it in a condescending way as in "lovely for Bakersfield", but rather in the same way I would consider well-to-do cities such as Atherton, Piedmont, or the "Fabulous Forties" area of Sacramento.

Yes, it's surprising that it is in Bakersfield, but it would be surprising to find in any American city of this size a pretty area like Westchester so close to a less-than-vibrant downtown.  In most other cities, a neighborhood like this would long ago have been blighted.

Density by design

I love multi-unit structures of the first half of the twentieth century where it seemed as much effort went into designing buildings occupied by ordinary people as into those of the wealthy.

In the couple of blocks between downtown Bakersfield and the Westchester neighborhood are two outstanding and meticulously maintained examples.

One is a take on the New England cottage style and the other on Santa Barbara mission style.  Both are designed around a central courtyard feature.

Running – Pick a hotel, but not just any hotel

I first really “got” the point about which I’m going to write in 2005 when I ran the Davis Stampede Half Marathon.  Davis isn’t too far from Chico, Calif. where I live; it’s 100 miles away, and about an 1 hour 45 minute drive.

We walked two blocks to get here!

My partner Keith and I chose to drive down the day before and stay overnight at a Best Western two blocks from the race start.

We arrived the afternoon before the race, picked up our race packets at the local running store, got a good night’s sleep, and walked two entire blocks to the start of the race.

Sweet.

A light went on and has burned ever since, and now that I operate a hotel reservation booking service for business travelers, I have the opportunity to propagandize (in a good way) my clients, many of whom are both runners and business travelers.

Before I drown you in reasons, here’s the part to take away:

When you’re doing a big running event out of town, you owe it to yourself to get the nicest hotel room possible, striking the best balance you can between cost and proximity.

Look at it from this perspective.

You’ve trained for a marathon putting in untold hours and miles over many months time.  It’s quite likely you’ve gone through two or more pairs of running shoes in training.

Why would you want to put that entire investment at risk by staying in a hotel that is far from the race start (or transportation to the race start), or so cheap that a good night’s sleep is problematic?  It’s a clear-cut case of penny wise and pound foolish.

The most important thing you can do is be rested for the Big Race, and not have an undue stress level added to an already early morning start by having to drive a long distance to the start of the event, with all of the potential for car trouble, traffic jams, or a frustrating search for parking.

Is money tight and you’re doing this marathon on a budget?  Then economize by ditching most of the post-training run meals and beers with your buddies, and put the money you would have spent in a jar and save it for a hotel room.  Believe me, you’ll be glad you did.

Now if you have the option of staying with friends or relatives that can be a good money-saving alternative to a hotel, provided it is relatively close to the start of the race.  But if your hosts are not interested in what you are about to do, then your free lodging may be more of a nuisance for them, what with your needing to get to sleep early the night before, and then rummaging around early on a Saturday or Sunday morning.  Should that be the case, consider redeeming this "free room" for another non-running occasion.  Plus part of the fun of staying at a hotel is soaking up the energy of all of the other runners doing the same thing.

Final tip: if you have a long drive or flight ahead of you after the marathon, strongly consider staying over the night after the race if your schedule and pocketbook permit.  Not only will you not have to scramble to shower and pack to beat the hotel check-out deadline, but your sore and cramping legs will thank you for not having to be cooped up in a car or plane.

Hotels - Marriott gets more Cosmopolitan

Back in February of this year, I wrote a post about large hotel chains emulating some of the smaller independent hotel groups such as Kimpton and Joie de Vivre, as well some of the other big chains with edgier brands (like Starwood's W Hotels).

Marriott has two significant initiatives underway, one of which is the Autograph Collection. (The other is the Edition brand.)  The Autograph Collection is a select group of existing independent hotels, that do not need to conform to the usual Marriott brand standards for service and appearance, but rather remain their high-end and distinctive selves without the Marriott name . The advantage for Marriott is that it can now offer a growing array of non-cookie cutter hotels, and tie its vast Marriott Rewards loyalty program members ever more tightly to its bosom.

For the independent hotels that join the Autograph Collection, they get the big advantage of having Marriott’s distribution system and loyalty program on its side. Guests like being able to accrue points in the Marriott program even while staying in an independent hotel, and enjoy redeeming points at an independent property in an attractive location.

Since my business is all about booking hotels for business travelers, I see first-hand how loyalty programs really do drive where travelers stay – both business and pleasure.

Marriott recently announced a new member of the Autograph Collection: the Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas.

Two things are striking about this choice.

One, is that the hotel has not even opened yet; the opening is slated for 15 December 2010. Marriott is making a bet on a property that doesn't yet have any kind of reputation for service.  (Will they have a role in the training of the staff, perhaps?)

Two, is that it is a hotel casino.  A really, really big casino.

Marriott’s other properties in Las Vegas do not have casinos. Their Marriott and Renaissance brands – the only full-service hotels among them – are located close to the convention center and Strip but are not on the Strip and simply are not the places you go if you want the Vegas experience.

The Cosmopolitan on the other hand has a great location in between the huge new CityCenter development (blogged about in May) and Bellagio. It is a huge, multi-tower colossus, that unusually (for this era) puts the 100,000 square foot casino at sidewalk level like older properties in both Las Vegas and Reno.

The Autograph Collection isn't intended to be solely smallish boutique-type properties and I know for sure you couldn't call a 3000 room hotel a boutique property! It certainly will be the first of its kind for Marriott in Las Vegas.

And a coup, I think, because none of the other major hotel chains has a hotel casino hotel on the Strip. Hilton has the huge Las Vegas Hilton but it’s by the convention center. Otherwise most of the big Strip hotel casinos are part of either the gaming-oriented Harrah’s and MGM Resorts chains. Technically, it won’t have the Marriott name on it but the Cosmopolitan will be closely linked via the Marriott Rewards program.

It's an interesting step for Marriott and a good move for the Cosmopolitan, whose road to opening has been anything but a smooth one.

Finally, a one sentence additional Autograph Collection note. Starting September 2010, an iconic New York hotel, whose doors have been open for a long time (1902) will be part of the Autograph Collection: the Algonquin.