The same travelers who like flying on cheap airplane tickets and staying in discount hotel rooms or purchasing cheap vacation packages often highly value the freebies offered by lower to midprice hotels. Complimentary gifts and services in the form of newspapers, food (particularly breakfast) and cocktails are highly valued by many guests.
Hotels offering freebies spent at average of $723 per room in 2009 on such services. This is the real average cost per room to hotels. If free Wi-Fi, in room toiletries, and coffee were included in the calculation, this figure would be significantly higher.
While such an investment seems high for hotels charging as little as $50 to $60 per night, hotel brand leaders feel it is well worth it because the value perception of guests significantly is much greater than the actual cost of the freebies. Further, such freebies are often viewed by guests as giving particular hotels a strong competitive advantage.
Embassy Suites Hotels research has shown that a family of four in a single suite value their free breakfasts as much as $50 to $60 when compared to eating the same meal at a restaurant. However, that meal for four only costs the hotel on average $6 to $7 per available suite.
Holiday Inn Express recently introduced a machine that allows customers to make fresh pancakes in less than one minute. It rolled these machines out to all of its 1,800 locations in the states in less than 100 days.
Residence Inn has added a waffle bar where guests can choose from an assortment of toppings, including fresh fruit.
Guests clearly value these free breakfasts, with some brand surveys showing participation rates of over 85 percent. 70 percent of those surveyed by Ypartership recently indicated that a free breakfast was very or extremely influential in their choosing a hotel, indicating it was even more important than free Internet access in the room. www.cheapfares.com