[news] – US resort offers $219 room for $19 with a tent
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I think I am losing my mind. I am not a marketing guru or anything like that, but this just does not make any sense to me.
I just finished reading an article on BBC News that The Rancho Bernardo Inn, a “Luxury Resort” here in the United States was offering rooms that usually start at $219 for as low as $19 a night. I understand that part. That’s actually a damm good deal. It’s this next part that I don’t understand.
The room starts at $219, but the resort will then reduce the price of the room for each amenity you don’t want in the room.
The cheapest deal – $19 – means guests sacrifice a bed, breakfast, air-conditioning, towels, toilet paper, a mini-bar and lighting.
Staff will even unscrew the headboard from the wall – but leave a small tent.
Wait, did I read that right? They even take out the toilet paper (a roll costs less than $0.50. Probably much less when they buy it wholesale).
General manager John Gates said that during tough economic times it was a way to help people stay at a nice resort who normally could not afford to.
So you take everything nice out of the room so its worse than a 2 start dump (last I checked even 2 star motels gave you toilet paper) and think your giving people a way of saying at a “NICE RESORT“?
What makes even less economic sense is that your room is going empty anyway. So instead of letting someone stay there at $19 with full comfort (which might actually convince the person to come back and pay full price) you increase your overheads by getting your staff to strip the room on a per client basis, so they can stay in a TENT IN AN EMPTY ROOM with NO toilet paper and expect them to come back and pay full price next time???
DUDE, WHAT ARE YOU SMOKING?
Source: BBC News.
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5 Responses to “[news] – US resort offers $219 room for $19 with a tent”
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ROFL MAO!
I still love reading here… and this is a reason why
Thanks Ben.
This really does boggle the mind though!
Talk about thinking out of the box!
I think the hotel may be profiting from publicity it has created by giving such a whacky deal.
seems to me that the “luxury” in this luxury resort isn’t in the rooms, it’s in everything else they offer. Personally I don’t travel for the accommodations, rather, I travel for the experience. And if I can stay 5 nights in a luxury hotel for $100 instead of $1000 I might have $900 extra to spend on the services this place would provide. It sounds genius. With the $900 I saved I think I’d be okay bringing my own ass wipe.
Totally agree… their marketing team is high. It would cost them less to reduce the rates to about $50 per night and leave the amenities in place than to lower it to $19 and pay the staff to strip the room down temporarily on a per customer basis.
Rough times in the economy or not… If I wanted to sleep in a tent with no toilet paper, I sure as hell wouldn’t do so at a hotel. I’d actually just go camping in the woods.