Foreign Perspectives

One thing that accompanies the high level of bookings at this time in August is the equally high level of cancellations.

People obviously have great difficulty in getting booked in anywhere at the moment so we think that they try to book in a few places simultaneously and then cancel those that aren’t quite where they want to be or are going to take too long to reach with the traffic levels. Whatever the reason, the number of cancellations goes up quite sharply.

One thing that people forget though is that if they want to cancel without charge then they sometimes need to cancel a considerable period in advance. We’re at the more lenient end of the scale by requiring (in most cases) 24 hours notice but I’ve seen as long as 7 days notice being required. Actually, we’re even more laid back than that as we’ll refund any charges taken if we can rebook the room which isn’t the case at most hotels.

The reason for the 24 hour period is simple: it’s to give us a chance to rebook the room. So, for the most part, the 24 hour notice period applies to sites which do “next day” booking ie you can’t book and turn up the same day. Net effect of the next day booking regime is that if you get a cancellation on Monday for a booking on Monday on one of those systems then you won’t get another booking from them for the same room. For most of the year that doesn’t really matter as the room will have remained listed on other sites but during peak periods we need to close down reservations most days ie if we get a cancellation then the room hasn’t remained listed elsewhere and we’re unlikely to book it. That sounds a bit peculiar to a lot of people who just assume that “obviously” we’ll get the room filled and perhaps that’s true for city-centre hotels but, for the most part, we don’t get people just dropping in asking for a room so if it’s not listed, it’s not sold.

The other thing that people forget is that we are charged if they cancel with under 24 hours notice. The sites that we get most bookings from are commission based ones who will charge us for any cancellations received with less than 24 hours notice given and, no, we can’t just tell them that we were notified a few days in advance as they obviously know when we put the cancellation in and they can (and do) check with the guests too.

Arnold