Vegas Building Boom Means Cheap Rooms

by Josh Lew on

Las Vegas is feeling the pinch of slumping travel numbers. The amount of visitors who enter Sin City has dropped by nearly 5%, but the construction of new hotels has led to an increase in rooms. Who to fill them?

Once they get over criticizing themselves for lacking foresight, hotel execs have to find a way to hawk all those empty beds.

The obvious strategy, at least for the short term, is to lower prices until they reach a point where visitors won’t mind shelling out a little extra for the flight because they are getting such a ridiculously cheap deal from the hotel.

How cheap is ridiculously cheap? According to MSNBC, over half the casino-owned hotels in the city are offering rates of $50 per night or below. Yes, that type of price is usually reserved for roadside motels where you can also choose to pay by the hour. Even high end, established names like Luxor and MGM Grand have rooms available for under $100 per night.

However, the famous ad campaign tag-line might be true of hotels as well. What happens in Vegas…isn’t happening elsewhere just yet. Rooms in Chicago, New York and other major metro areas are still at full price. International tourists, convention-goers, and business travelers make up the bulk of New York’s hotel customers. They have other bases to rely on as the number of US-based leisure travelers decline. That is not so in Las Vegas.

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Affordable Hotels and B&Bs in Europe

by Iva Skoch on

Searching for hotel rooms in Athens and Rome this week, I stumbled upon this website: hotelroom.com.

I could not find any affordable hotels on hotels.com, quickbook.com, expedia, travelocity…and all those usual suspects. On hotelroom.com, however, I was able to find hotels for as little as 30Euro for a double room in Athens. They provide photos, reviews and their cancellation penalties are very forgiving. Plus, the hotels have character. You don’t see chain hotels on the site very often.

I wish I knew about this site years ago!

Why You Should Stay Away From Hotels

by Martha Edwards on

I love staying in hotels, if for no other reason than I don’t have to clean up (much) after myself — I can leave the bed unmade, and fresh sheets and towels will magically appear without me having to make the trek to the laundry room. But sometimes a hotel isn’t the best option — renting an apartment or house is often the way to go, especially if you’re staying for a while. According to this article from MSNBC, there are lots of reasons to avoid hotels. Such as?

Space: Hotel rooms can be pretty limiting size-wise. Your own flat or house will come with lots of extra space, and maybe even your own yard.

Privacy: Hotels are public places; you can keep to yourself in your own apartment.

Price: It’s often a much better deal to rent your own place for a week than pay a nightly rate at a hotel — which can be really expensive! Plus, you can make your own meals in the kitchen, which saves a lot of money.

Cultural experience: Renting your own place allows you to avoid all the other tourists and get a feel for what it’s like to live like the locals. And, consider this: All name-brand hotels are basically the same, so why stay at one when you’re somewhere exotic? You might as well be staying in Poughkeepsie as far as the hotel decor goes.

Flexibility: There are rules at the hotel. In your own place? Not so much.

Don’t just look at rental apartments and houses either — keep your eyes open for unique accommodations. For instance, I stayed on a houseboat on the Seine River when I was last in Paris; it was an amazing experience.

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Free Accommodation in Paris

by Iva Skoch on

If you are into mixing culture with adventure travel, Paris is the new hot location. Apparently, you can pitch your tent right on the banks of the Seine these days.

Friends who just honeymooned in Paris sent me this picture, actually a series of pictures. Look closely – yes, those are all tents of the homeless along the Seine.

This is what they said: “How on Earth can these folk camp around The Pompidou Center? At the shore of the Seine beneath the Musee D’Orsay? With dogs. Fires. Reading newspapers. Playing instruments with competence. One bloke in the Palais de Tokyo was charging his phone, playing Nintendo GameBoy, rolling smokes and sipping a six pack of Belgian blond beer. Is this a common phenomenon for…art galleries?”

Well, after a glasses of chilled Chablis, I guess you could call this a postmodern approach to housing. I hear that the views are great, but the service is so so. And, of course, it is always BYOB.