Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You seem to be completely missing the point about this.
No one is arguing that the price will change, which is the tangent you seem to have gone off on. The point is that the consumer is now better able to compare the prices offered by a variety of vendors much more effectively. Whilst you and everyone else on a nice expense account wouldn't notice the difference anyway, plenty of people on a budget going on vacation like to know what they're paying for their hotel, before they've flown in, landed, and lugged their bags to the reception desk.
To take your example I'd rather be checking into Bally's knowing that I have a $74 room booked, then check in having budgeted for a $35 room and then being told that actually its $74.
Have you actually tried to book a hotel? Its impossible not to see the resort fee these days. If you are window shopping only would you possibly miss the cost. Its on every site, direct or OTA. Pretty clear too what the total price will be. To argue you didn't know would be like arguing you didn't think you had to pay tax on a room. I would agree it would be nice if the industry got together and said lets stop with the nonsense, but until the OTAs agree not to charge commission on the full price or come up with some agreement on what should be charged, this is the way it will be.
Point in all this is if the hotels just gave in, we would actually see even higher prices because they would pass along the additional commission paid to the OTAs to the consumers. I don't think people realize that OTAs, as it is, are earning 15-30% commissions on rooms from lower-end Vegas hotels. Those lower cost rooms on the Strip would go up the most. It wouldn't just be a change in advertised prices, it would be a price increase. So the consumers on the tight budgets you mention would possibly be priced out of a Vegas vacation.
There are some behind the scenes issues here, especially when it comes to rooms sold through consolidators / on-line sites. Usually these rooms are bought in bulk at a steep discount and resold. Originally the hotels only made the money on the initial bulk sale. The consolidator would then advertised them to the public at a discount to the hotels own retail rate, competing with the hotel. But now, the resort fee is collect by the hotel directly from the guest, giving the hotel another revenue stream that goes around the consolidator.
If the resort fee gets banned, the hotel will have to try and charge the consolidators more to make up the difference. But these are big buyers who control a lot of sales. They will give the hotels a lot of push back. If the hotel don't make deals with them, a lot of rooms will go empty. This could bring total room rates down (advertised rate + the current resort fee) down significantly.
It's my understanding that the Congressional bill is not to ban the resort fees, but to make them visible and upfront, more so than they are now.
I hate those resort fees when I travel and agree that it's deceptive. All fees should be clearly stated in the price quote at the START of the booking process.
__________________
- Please follow our TOS.
- Any Questions about City-Data? See the FAQ list.
- Want some detailed instructions on using the site? See The Guide for plain english explanation.
- Realtors are welcome here but do see our Realtor Advice to avoid infractions.
- Thank you and enjoy City-Data.
I agree that resort fees make it difficult to compare price of hotels. I just spent two nights in Lake Tahoe, I spent quite some time to find the right hotel. Some of them have resort fees, some not. Since the resort fees are not included in the listed prices, which are used for comparison (sorting) purpose, a cheaper hotel may turn out to be more expensive, especially I don't know what they are implied as resort, when the name does not suggest it. For swimming pools when the temperature is close to freezing?
The bill wouldn't ban resort fees, but would simply force hotels to include the price of everything (to include resort fees) upfront. I can get with this. Some of the resort fees and what they supposedly cover are disgusting, as is the often late notice of the fees.
Have you actually tried to book a hotel? Its impossible not to see the resort fee these days. If you are window shopping only would you possibly miss the cost. Its on every site, direct or OTA. Pretty clear too what the total price will be. To argue you didn't know would be like arguing you didn't think you had to pay tax on a room. I would agree it would be nice if the industry got together and said lets stop with the nonsense, but until the OTAs agree not to charge commission on the full price or come up with some agreement on what should be charged, this is the way it will be.
Point in all this is if the hotels just gave in, we would actually see even higher prices because they would pass along the additional commission paid to the OTAs to the consumers. I don't think people realize that OTAs, as it is, are earning 15-30% commissions on rooms from lower-end Vegas hotels. Those lower cost rooms on the Strip would go up the most. It wouldn't just be a change in advertised prices, it would be a price increase. So the consumers on the tight budgets you mention would possibly be priced out of a Vegas vacation.
It IS a price increase. It is not like you can get out of paying the resort fee. Most people go to either an aggregator first or to the brand website to book, and those don’t tend to show you the resort fee included in the price. When you get in there and realize at the booking screen that there is a $50 resort fee on top of the room rate, that wastes a lot of time. If it is a week’s vacation, that’s an extra $350 to the overall cost that a family might not have nor want to spend on a room if they don’t plan on using the resort amenities. I compare a lot when I book hotels. Does it have free breakfast. How is the parking (if I need it). Those are already hard enough to find in many cases, and add in the resort fees and it can be a pretty significant difference.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
