r/hotels

I work on hotel tech and I want to pressure-test one thing with people who actually run operations: real-time room occupancy (a simple sensor that tells you whether a room is occupied or empty right now). Not pitching anything, I just want the honest view.

Where operators tell me it earns its keep:

• Cleaning routes: HSK stops knocking door by door to find out what's empty.
• Less cross-team back-and-forth: HSK, maintenance and front desk can check occupancy themselves instead of radioing each other to verify.
• Silent leavers: by late morning you can see which rooms are actually empty even if the guest never checked out at the desk, so cleaning can start earlier.

The tech isn't new, but it's cheaper and simpler to deploy now, and plenty of properties still run blind on this.

For anyone who's worked with live occupancy data (or wished they had it): what actually changed day to day? Where did it fall short, throw false readings, or annoy staff? Any occupancy use case I'm not seeing?

Thanks.

I work at a hotel, and anytime I have had a problem, the problem has always been with booking.com. They refuse to talk directly to hotel staff and will only talk through email. The problem is they never send the email, or they send it to the wrong one. I had an experience today where a guest was on the phone with them, and they handed the phone to me to talk to them, and the customer service person refused to talk to me. saying it was against policy. The guest even tried to ask them what email they were sending the email to, and they refused to talk.

Never use booking.com

**If you are planning a trip to Montreal, stay as far away from LeLux Hotel as possible.**
**The reception staff is extremely hostile and problematic. They refused to check us in, even after 3 hours of trying to confirm our booking. I had Agoda’s confirmation email, my name on the website, and Agoda’s customer service on the phone. Agoda tried contacting the hotel for 2 hours, but the receptionist completely ignored the calls and emails. To make matters worse, she refused to help us because we didn't speak French, which is ridiculous for a hotel worker.**
**Management doesn't care at all. I have video proof of the receptionist laughing in our faces, refusing to give us the room, and threatening to break my phone when she saw me recording.**
**While we were waiting, two other guests came down because their AC was broken on an extremely hot day. Instead of helping them, the staff called the police on one of them!**
**Save your money, time, and mental health. Avoid this nightmare place.**

Was thinking of staying in a Holiday Inn Express, but was ambivalent about it bc it has a skeevy parking lot. I had looked at the price at the IHG website and it was $153 (total). Since I was waffling, I didn't book it online. I went there and walked in and asked the price. They said there was only 1 type of room available and it would be $231. That's more than 50% higher than the online rate!

I went to my car and called IHG and was quoted the $153 rate - after I told them I had found it on their website - and was told both that it is common practice for the walk-in rate to be higher, and also that it was a different type of room, although the desk guy told me there was only one type of room left.

Is this normal? Do all hotel brands quote ridiculously high walk-in rates? I'm just curious. Obviously I now know never to accept the walk-in rate without checking the rate online!

(I decided to go to a Hampton Inn which is much nicer, and about the same price.)

Decided to go to DC for the 4th weekend. Was gonna stay in a campsite but had to cancel last minute because of the heat. Found an inexpensive hotel and booked it for the weekend. It was the Days Inn and Suites in Laurel over by Greenbelt. Booked through Expedia.

When I checked in, I went to my room and found a PERSON sleeping in the bed when I opened the door. I went back to the lobby and spoke to the manager and told her what happened. She didn’t seem bothered and told me that she was supposed to check out 2 days ago but has been staying there without paying. It became obvious that they used my reservation as an excuse to finally kick her out.

She gave me a new key and upon opening door 2, I found a room that had not been serviced since the last person checked out. Garbage was everywhere, sheets were on the floor, whole place smelled like cigarettes. I went back again and asked for a new key. Manager looked annoyed this time. At this point I was pissed and asked for a discount or a refund on my first night due to this disgusting inconvenience. She refused.

Door number 3 was “cleaned” but upon further inspection when I checked under the mattress for bed bugs, I found a woman’s bra. Found dead bugs, crackers, and crumbs on the floor. Towels were crumpled in a pile and shower was filthy. I also found a HUGE Praying Mantis in the closet.At this point I was beginning to panic because every other hotel from what I knew was either sold out or $500 per night. I was not driving all the way home. Managed to find another hotel for an additional $80 per night and but the bullet.

I called Expedia and cancelled my reservation and asked for a refund. They contacted the hotel and spoke to the same manager. I also spoke to her and she told me I was not receiving a refund. Now I’m not a confrontational person so this was hard for me. She said she wouldn’t refund me because I booked through Expedia and didn’t purchase travel insurance. I told her that has nothing to do with what happened and I should be getting a refund due to their failure to provide a safe and habitable room.

She caved and offered a partial refund. I refused and demanded a full refund and explained how disgusting and unprofessional this was in a very polite manner because like I said I’m not confrontational. I really wanted to rip into this woman. She again refused and got hostile so I just left and told her that they wouldn’t be getting away with this.

I should be refunded right? This was absolutely insane.I would even go as far to say I should be getting compensated for the extra expense to get another pricier hotel. Thoughts?

We're staying at a hotel in Canada and there are no signs in the elevator re: maximum capacity or when the elevator was last inspected.

One elevator was out of service the other day. (Apparently people were stuck inside for a bit.)

Should we be concerned? Should there be inspection/capacity signage?

I’m the manager of a 4-star hotel.
Two receptionists resigned yesterday because of low salaries, so we’re already understaffed. My best receptionist (44F) is still with us, but this is now the second time she’s gotten drunk on her day off, became incoherent while discussing her work schedule, and then canceled or denied her next shift.
Professionally, she’s excellent. Guests love her, she’s hardworking, and when she’s at work, there are no issues.
The problem is reliability. I can’t run a hotel if I don’t know whether my receptionist will show up the next day.
I’ve also learned she has serious family problems and may be dealing with depression, using alcohol to cope. That makes me feel conflicted because I genuinely want to help her as a person.
Would you:
Give her one last chance with a serious conversation and clear boundaries?
Or end the employment because the unpredictability is already affecting the business?
I’m looking for advice from people who’ve managed employees in similar situations. I want to do the right thing both as a manager and as a human being.

I haven't stayed in a hotel in over a decade, in part due to being afraid of bed bugs. I acquired bed bug bites the last time I stayed in one (in 2016), and was very lucky that containing and repeatedly washing and drying my clothes seemed to knock out any threat I may have taken home.

I'm staying overnight in a small town, Mom & Pop hotel next week and I'm highly anxious about the risk.

I know the following:

1. Check mattresses, especially along the seams and the box spring, immediately for bugs, nymphs, or droppings.

2. Do the same with pillows.

3. Hang all belongings from hangers.

4. Put all belongings that can't hang in the tub.

5. Don't put anything on the floor.*

6. Seal any cloths in plastic bags and immediately wash them in hot water & dry them hot upon returning home (and discard the bags)

Is all of that good advice?
What am I missing for maximal prevention/protection?

Thanks very much in advance.

*Another person will be sharing the room and plans to use an air mattress that I own and sleep on it on the floor. I am very concerned about this but don't know what I can do to protect them and to prevent contamination of the air mattress. I will also be brining linens from home to cover the mattress.

Basically what the title says. Just had the worst hotel experience I've ever had with ESA, to make a very long story short, we had a reservation at another ESA hotel (ESA A) sent to another ESA hotel(ESA B) because A over booked themselves, the room was already paid for so the manager just sent the reservation over to B where they had rooms. While trying to explain the situation to the woman at the front desk she began to yell at us and began to vaguely threaten us. We ended up calling the cops due to how she was acting (screaming, slamming doors etc) and we ended up just going elsewhere. She was saying how they were going to flag us as DNR, can ESA make is so you literally cannot book anywhere? Thank you. Should also add I do not know if sure if I was actually put on a DNR list.

We were going to stay a night in Bend on our way home to Boise but the night we would be going through happens to coincide with a concert at the amphitheater so all the usual hotels I would stay at (Marriott, Hilton, best western etc) are all pretty pricey. Are any of the budget hotels okay? My priorities are safe area and cleanliness as well as a pool for the kids to swim in. We need at least 2 real beds because it is myself, my 72 year old mother, and 2 children. Some of the hotels that are usually recommended are $400 a night!

My family and I are staying at the Hampton inn in Panama City Beach in November. We booked through a timeshare. We were assigned a standard room with an ocean view but were hoping to switch to a studio. On the website it is the same exact price but when I call they say we would have to pay an extra 40 per night for the "upgrade". It's hardly an upgrade especially since the one I asked about was no ocean view or even ocean side. Just wanted a little extra room. Are they just trying to get more money?

hey everyone,

revenue manager for ~15 properties and i feel like my job is slowly turning into excel support instead of actual revenue work.

right now my weekly routine looks like this:

1.export from PMS

2. export from RMS

3. export from channel manager

4.dump everything into Excel

5. try to stitch it together manually

6.then cross-check booking engine / conversion stuff separately

and every time i finish the “weekly report”, i already know half of it is basically outdated. the annoying part is none of the systems actually talk to each other. so i’m constantly bouncing between tools just to build something my director wants every week (plus comp set analysis, pacing, all that).

i’ve started looking into proper business intelligence for hotel setups because at this point it feels like the only way out dashboards, automated pipelines, anything that stops me from being a human csv importer. but honestly i don’t know what people are actually using in real operations vs what just looks good in demos.

for anyone managing multiple properties:

what are you using to actually automate reporting across PMS / RMS / channel managers?

did you end up with BI dashboards, hotel-specific tools, or some custom setup?

and real question, did it actually save time or did it just move the pain somewhere else?

because right now it’s eating like half my week and i’m not even doing pricing properly anymore.

Hi there, so I recently started a company helping hotels and I’m selling them software with ai and I am starting to experience a error of not producing revenue, I’ve gone done the traditional route of cold outreach but the sales cycle isn’t easy enough to call a hotel and sell them something. Does anybody have any recommendations on what to do to produce some sales, I have some thoughts in mind including partnerships but I’m not sure who to partner with. If you have any experience I’d love all the help I can get please. Thank you 🙏🏽

I've got a few trips spread out over the rest of the year, so I've been trying to see which hotel discount sites are worth checking these days. Last trip I waited too long and ended up paying way more than I should have for a pretty average room, not making that mistake again.

I compare a few places before booking and sometimes the price differences are bigger than I expect. Lately I've been checking sites like Super.​ com alongside the usual options, but I'm wondering if there are any others I'm overlooking.

For people who travel often, which sites have consistently helped you save money on hotels?

Not necessarily looking for the absolute cheapest rate every time, just the sites you've had the best overall experience with.

Stayed at Playsales by Playotel at Indore (Madhya Pradesh, India) recently and noticed something odd regarding bottled water pricing.

We ordered 2 sealed Bisleri bottles through room service. The bottles clearly had ₹20 MRP embossed on them, but the invoice charged ₹38 per bottle (+ taxes), making the total around ₹80.

What stood out was that the invoice only mentioned the bottle charges themselves, there was no separate room service, handling, or hospitality charge mentioned anywhere.

We politely asked the staff for clarification, but the manager was unavailable at the time, so the issue remained unresolved.

I understand hotel staff usually don’t control pricing policies, so this is more about the hotel/company policy itself.

Wanted to ask: Is this actually legal for hotels in India if the markup is billed directly as the bottle price itself?

The hotel room we got was an absolute scam compared to every photo on the hotel website…rooms looked clean and new…our room had not one but two outside entrances.the photos showed beautiful indoor pool and hot tub,pool was actually outdoor in the middle of a brown dry patch of grass. Bathroom was gross with rusted tub drain and mildew around window frame ,because there was a window on outside wall so of course window over bathtub.
What is best recourse?? If the room we got was what was represented on the website listing,it wouldn’t matter! It’s feeling scammed that makes it worse.

Just happened today, 4th of July weekend - Third party apps all say the hotel is pet friendly, but it turns out it’s just some rooms. I made a reservation a month ago, showed up and they told me to leave because they had no pet friendly rooms - even though it says the entire hotel is pet friendly in “property details”. The checkin girl was obnoxious, there was no manager on site to have a discussion with and I had traveled all day. No matter the cheap price, this hotel sucks!!! It’s also ugly and quite dated

Hi! I'm buying tickets for my fiance and I for norway this July. I would like to order a room with thick walls or sound proof. Is there any hotel chains like that in norway? Or are the all the same?

Thanks and sorry for such a strange question😓

I have several early starts at work comming up in various locations so i've booked several different hotels over the next few months that were the cheapest. They arent ghettos or hostels but a couple of cheap chains like a Travelodge and an Ibis as well as a couple of smaller Nox townhouses. Im just wondering wether people walk around in hotels barefoot or with socks on or is that unsanitary? Should you bring your own slippers/sliders? Am I thinking too negative?