Hotels.com reveals it pays to shop around as top end hotels cut prices

Hotels.com, the leading accommodation site, has encouraged travellers to shop around when booking their Christmas city breaks to secure a top end hotel for a mid end price.*

Top-end hotels (particularly those in the four-star category) have cut their prices harder than other categories, which means that the price difference between a three-star hotel and a four-star is less than it has been for years. The average cost of upgrading from a mid-range to a top class hotel is as low as £2 per night in Oslo, just £7 in Barcelona and £9 in Madrid and Mexico City.

The cost of a shift to a four-star hotel can bring huge benefits, with better facilities, often more central locations, great restaurants (for that all important holiday breakfast) and bigger rooms.

However, four-star hotels have struggled particularly in the downturn as travellers have continued to take their main holidays but have made other breaks a discretionary purchase and have trimmed costs - preserving their break but spending less on hotels. The response from many hotels in the four-star category has been to cut rates back harder than those in the three-star category, bringing the cost of upgrade down substantially.

Alison Couper, director of communications at Hotels.com says: "While many still want to head off on breaks over the autumn and winter, there is a sense that money should be saved wherever possible.

"However, we would counsel travellers to shop around and not to think that, just because a hotel has three stars over the door, they will save money - in many cases four-star rooms can be cheaper than three-star hotels, and the cost of an upgrade might be much lower than travellers think."

Ends

Notes to editors
*Hotels.com's Hotel Price Index (HPI) is a regular survey of hotel prices in major city destinations across the world. The HPI is based on bookings made on Hotels.com.

The HPI tracks the actual prices paid per room by Hotels.com customers around the world rather than advertised rates. The latest HPI looks at prices from January to June 2009, compared to the same period in 2008. Approximately 78,000 hotels in more than 13,000 locations make up the sample of hotels from which prices are taken. The HPI was started in 2004 and is considered by some to be the most comprehensive and accurate source of global hotel pricing information

About Hotels.com
As part of the Expedia group which operates in all major markets, Hotels.com offers more than 100,000 quality hotels, B&Bs and serviced apartments worldwide including hotels in Dublin, hotels in New York, Edinburgh hotels and hotels in London. If a customer can find the same deal for less on a prepaid hotel, Hotels.com will match it. Hotels.com benefits from one of the largest hotel contracting teams in the industry negotiating the best rates for its customers, plus there are 1.3m reviews from users who have actually stayed in the hotels to ensure customers make an informed choice when booking. Hotels.com won the Gold Award for best hotel booking site in Webuser magazine in February 2009. Travellers can book online or by contacting one of the multilingual call centres on 0871 200 0171.

PR Contact:
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