The keys to finding the best hotel room at the best price, every time – Online Travel Insider article

Let’s start with the basic principle of defining how hotel prices are determined. Hotel produce, for the most part, is a highly perishable item, even more so than fruit in a grocery store. If it doesn’t sell the night of, it goes to waste. Generally speaking, hotels will forecast target price points based on demand towards their supply (based on seasonality, traffic generators like conventions/attractions, and market conditions). Advanced inventory is typically assigned to multiple distribution lines (i.e. online resellers, tour operators, airline crews, group blocks, etc.) for the purpose of generating base occupancy using a residual of total capacity to achieve a target average rate. All this formulation leads to the sale of similar hotel products with variations that can have a variation of 300% from top to bottom, that is; that hotel room you bought for $250/night in downtown Toronto could be sold through an alternative channel for $100/night or less. Your goal, of course, is to be on the math side of $100/night or less.

Don’t be overwhelmed with the effort of finding the best price, and don’t assume that the first price you see on a mega travel site is even close to the best deal. Check with the usual big box online sites and/or use a meta-travel site and develop an understanding of the hotel market you are traveling to. Identify a few hotels that interest you and narrow your search to find the best channel to book those hotels. While opaque sites that lure shoppers with an unidentified product before purchase can sometimes deliver good value, don’t be fooled into thinking it’s the only way to find the best price; usually the same product value is offered in a disclosed manner elsewhere.

Remember that Google is your friend. Use it to identify online travel sites that may not be well known. Similar to the Toronto hotel model, many destinations have boutique resellers who are local to the market and have intimate relationships with the hotels they work with. Big markets like Las Vegas, Orlando, and Chicago have several online hotel stores that have access to distressed hotel inventory that the usual suspects don’t. Using the Toronto hotel product as an example, there are more than 30,000 units of inventory in the Greater Toronto Area (including airport, downtown, and suburban products) to be dispensed on any given night. With that in mind, always know that in the big markets there is no reason to settle for a price you are not comfortable with.

Lastly, ALWAYS check with the hotel you’ve stayed at to make sure the rate you’re about to book online is, in fact, one you can’t beat at the property level. Book smart!