A secret about the U.S. hotel industry is that every night the industry struggles with an average of 40% of its rooms empty. Surprisingly, this has helped influence the market of the hotel industry tremendously by creating great innovation. Hotels have now adopted online models that have helped create a demand to fill more rooms. For example, getaroom.com displays the lowest published rate for a particular room and then promises to beat it when you phone them. However, the catch is the customer will not know that exact price until Getaroom bills their credit card. The only guarantee is that you will not pay more than the published rate, where Getaroom averages about 25 % below the lowest published rate.
Even though the hotel industry has experienced recent innovation, hotel “shopping” by room numbers has not caught on yet. A new strategy of the hotel industry, an online company called Room 77, where diagrams of the hotel and specifically hotel rooms are available for guest to see. Co-founder of the website made an interesting point, “I found it quite odd that here we are 10 years into online travel … but the room I’m going to be staying in is a complete black box. You just don’t know until that fateful moment that you open that hotel door whether the room they gave you is a good room or a bad room.” The website collects the customer’s preferences and rank each room according to one’s criteria, which the customer is then sent to Orbitz or the hotel’s site to book the room. As of right now, you don’t get to view pictures or select the exact room of your choice on the website. Yet, this option is in the near future if hotels may agree to allow specific room selection for an extra fee.
Such innovation in the technology environment is necessary to the hotel industry in order to advance its influence in modern business. Such websites accommodate to the customer and appeal to the preferences of their clientele, making one’s experience more personal.
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