Hotels provide private serviced rooms for guests. They range from very basic budget-style to extremely luxurious. In this article we will provide Hotel booking tips.
ROOM TYPES
Single rooms are for single travellers. In many hotels, a single room is actually the same as a double room.
Double rooms are for two travellers sleeping in the same bed.
Twin rooms have two separate single beds.
Triple rooms have either three separate bed, or a double bed plus a single bed.
Quads rooms are designed for 4 people or more.
Suites are complete apartments with multiple rooms, intended for long stays — or just people with money to burn.
There is considerable variation and many frills within these basic types, the rule of thumb being that the more you pay, the larger your room becomes. Some business-oriented hotels offer an executive level, where a steep premium gets you access into an airline-style lounge and typically some perks like "free" Internet access or pay-per-view movies. Naming for these rooms varies, with eg. the Kuala Lumpur Hilton dubbing even its cheapest rooms as "Deluxe" and the next category up being "Executive" — but you need to upgrade one more step to an "Executive Suite" if you want to actually get the executive level perks. Some hotels are now taking an active stance on being smoke free.
Hotels may additionally offer meal service included in the price. Common terms include:
Bed and breakfast (B&B). The morning meal is included. This may range considerably from a simple roll and coffee to an elaborate spread.
Half board (aka half pension, demi-pension, modified American plan). A hotel rate that includes breakfast and one additional meal, typically dinner. Also called Modified American Plan and demi-pension.
Full board (aka full pension, full American plan). A hotel rate in which three meals a day are included in the price.
All inclusive. All meals and drinks are included. The list of "free" drinks is usually limited though: house wine is probably OK, champagne probably isn't.
STAR RATING
Six and seven-star hotels - The notion is that a hotel can be six or seven stars is a joke among travel professionals since most respectable hotel rating systems do not give out a rating higher than five stars. The consensus is since so few hotels really can achieve the five star rating then there shouldn't be a rating higher than five stars.
An example of a popularly known "seven star" hotel is Dubai's Burj al-Arab. It's certainly one of the most luxurious hotels in the world (as awarded earlier by Conde Nast Traveller Magazine), and is also officially the tallest hotel in the world. In reality, it is a 5 star deluxe property (the popular seven star status is not often corrected in the media, though).
Five-star hotels - The five-star hotels is the quintessential luxury hotel, offering thrills above and beyond the actual needs of the travel. They have restaurants and night spots that are world class, with food and entertainment that draw non-guests to sample it too.
Five-star hotels also tend to have opulent and expensive decorations; fancy gyms, swimming pools and spas. Major five-star chains compete to offer the most ludicrous thrills imaginable: Loews offers dog-walking services, while Conrad will let you order from a menu of pillows. Needless to say, all this comes at a steep price, and you're unlikely to be able to justify the expense of a five-star for ordinary business travel. The other downside to five-stardom is that hotels that can jump through all the hoops to achieve the rating are likely to be large and impersonal.
Four-star hotels - The four-star hotel is a good business hotel. Everything works smoothly, there's Internet in every room, a well-equipped business center, they'll arrange your airport transfer and room service is palatable and only somewhat expensive. And your boss will probably not faint when they see the bill.
Three-star hotels - Three-star hotels are solid but dull. Your room will have an attached bathroom and there's probably a restaurant downstairs and 24-hour reception service.
Two-star hotels - Two stars means no-frills hotel. In most countries two stars means that your room probably has its own bathroom and there's probably a TV and telephone in your room, but rooms are bare-bones and you're unlikely to want to spend any more time than strictly necessary inside.
One-star hotels - You don't see many of these, and with reason. One-stars are not just no-frills, but often downright dodgy: rooms are barely functional, shared bathrooms are somewhere down a corridor and the painted ladies from the all-hours karaoke bar next door dance the horizontal tango all night long in the room next to yours.
Unrated hotels - Unrated hotels are a mixed bag. Most, it is safe to say, are hotels that are either too dodgy to achieve even the meager requirements of a one-star — or, alternatively, too small and personal to be able to offer (say) 24-hour room service, although the service and amenities offered are otherwise of five-star caliber.
BOOKING TIPS
Always choose hotel nearby all travel spots you are planning to visit in a city. Try to find hotel in your budget around the area you are traveling. For example if you are going to see Taj Mahal in Agra make sure your hotel in nearby Taj Mahal or you could end you spending lots of time and money on transportation.
Make sure Hotel has Restaurant Facility, this service hwever is very common in US and Europe but in India and China you may not find this service in every hotel. Its important for Business Traveler to look for this service in the hotel, you do not want to come to hotel at night from business meeting then go out and look for some restaurant.
Check what services hotel provides, these days lots of booking engine provides this service.
If you can not find hotel in your budget you can look for Hostels. These are very cheap and afforadble by everyone. All major cities has cheap hostels.
WARNING FOR ASIANS TRAVELERS
If you are from India or any muslim country please read this section very carefully before making any booking.
Lots of hotels in USA, Europe and of Asia have strict rules when it comes of Asian tourists from this part of the world. These rules were enforced after 9/11 and majority of hotels has accepted them after 26/11 terror attacks.
In order to check-in hotel you may be asked to provide some documents including drivers licence, voting card, some varification from the company where you work. These requirements are vary from hotel to hotel. If you failed to provide these documents you won't be allowed to check-in, recently one couple was snubbed at 2 AM in morning in Los Angeles. According to Forbes over 3,000 tourists from Asia were denied access by hotels last year.
Major problem regarding these documents are that most of the booking engine has no or very little information about this. So if you are planning trip abroad make sure to call the hotel you have booked for any documents requirement. There are still many hotels which do not demand any documents.
To avoid this you can look for Booking Engines which provides such information. We at Easy Destination has updated our both Hotel Booking and Budget Hostels booking engine with these informations. If these in any requirement you will find out about it in hotel description.
