I just love the On-line Travel Agents.

As a motelier, you like to think you are running your own business but then you get an email from one of them and you remember that you’re actually working for the OTA’s .

They write:

As your property is using a central reservation system (or Channel Manager) to manage your minimum length of stay restriction, we will remove the length of stay restriction applied to your rate plans on 2nd April 2019.

I just wonder what makes them think they can remove the length of stay restriction.  Surely if I want to have a minimum stay, I should be allowed to have one. What gives them that right to just remove it to suit their own purpose.

It’s a pity guests don’t understand that by using the OTA’s their choices are restricted. Our motel is on a busy main road and therefore it can be noisy.  Guests see ‘cheap price’ and they book a room not realising that they could get a better deal if they just rang the motel direct.  The person running the motel knows their place of business better than any OTA and also asks the right questions to find out if they room they are requesting is the right room for their stay.

I would dearly love to ditch the OTA’s but they’ve done such a wonderful marketing/brainwashing job on the public that we really can’t get rid of them now.  I’ll have my little rant now and then and hopefully it will get through eventually.

RING DIRECT and get the best deal.