Would Appreciate Opinions on E-Mailing for Hotel Reservations
 

I have done my preliminary homework on hotels in Italy for our June 2006 trip for a family of 10.

All the pertinent information is on a spreadsheet, which includes every hotel's e-mail address.

My quandry is this: Should I send a separate e-mail to each hotel (time consuming and laborious)or send a "broadcast" message to all the hotels I am interested in for each city/town?

I do not want to offend any of the hotels in a broadcast e-mail because it's obvious I am shopping around for prices (remember - family of 10). However, my hotel list is extensive and it is a lot of time and work to send each e-mail individually.

I am willing to send each hotel an e-mail individually, if that is the general consensus on this board.

I appreciate any input you can give me.

There have been differences of opinion on this board as to whether e-mail, in and of itself, is the &quot;best&quot; way to contact hotels and make reservations <b>vs</b> using fax or direct telephone contact.

Personally, I've had satisfactory results using direct e-mails or using hotel website reservation systems/e-mail requests, etc.

I think you should pare down your &quot;list&quot; to the two or three hotels you are most interested in <b>or </b> is your strategy that you are interested in them all and will take whichever one offers you the lowest price?

I somehow doubt you'll get as much response from some sort of &quot;broadcast&quot; e-mail (which, to me, seems like something close to SPAM).

And as to the hotels being &quot;offended&quot; by the fact that you are shopping around...I suspect they would think you are foolish <b>not</b> to shop around.

As a follow-on...perhaps depending on how you <b>word</b> your broadcast e-mail and ask for the lowest price or whatever you may get a lot of responses.

If you don't hear anything within a certain period of time you could always send individual e-mails.

I have always e-mailed every hotel separately, with basically the same message (request for rates, availability, etc.)

It takes a little time, but I have nearly always received prompt and polite replies.

I probably e-mailed at least 20 hotels in planning our October trip to Paris, and in the past at least that many for various trips to Italy.

I don't think I would send &quot;broadcast&quot; messages, but what do I know!

Byrd

I think a lot of people might be interested in how this works out (if you do broadcast). Some have gone so far as to say that hotels disregard e-mails as being from people who &quot;aren't serious about making a reservation&quot; (then why do they have an e-mail address???) and another has said that hotels don't like getting lots of e-mails because it overloads them (what a &quot;problem&quot; to have when you're trying to sell rooms).

Why don't you Bcc the email - just make sure you write the email so it soulds like it is being directed to one hotel.

&quot;sounds&quot;

I always send separate message to each hotel. I use the same message, forward it and delete the previous address, so it is not so much time consumming.
For a trip where we needed 7 hotels in different locations, after I looked in internet for prices and conditions, I already selected what hotels I want. Then, I decided about one agency. I sent to this agency a list asking for an offer for all the hotels. So, I booked all hotels at at once. It was easy.

I would NOT send an obvious broadcast e-mail to numerous recipients. In your situation I'd most likely draft one generic e-mail, copy it, and then paste it into individual e-mails sent to each separate hotel e-mail address. I would then follow up by sending the same message by Fax if I didn't get an e-mail reply after a day or two. I think some hotels that are newcomes to the internet really aren't very comfortable with it, and may check e-mail infrequently, or give only one or very few employees access.

Some hotels won't respond this early for 2006. They won't have rates for your dates yet and some just don't book that far in advance.

kybourbon, I agree, this would be a little early to actually send the e-mails, but I want to get my ducks in order.

sarvowinner, That was my intention&quot; To address the subject line as though it was intended for an individual hotel.

Intrepid1, Oh, yes, the wording is critical because I am looking for the lowest possible rate the hotel(s) can offer. Your point is well-taken regarding reducing my list. Maybe I should &quot;cherry-pick.&quot;

byrd, I think you may know a lot more than you're letting on.

valtor, recycling the message as you suggested is certainly an option.

cmt, you mention creating a draft of the message. I also thought about making a Word document, then copying and pasting to the e-mail.

Compared to when just my husband and I travel this is a lot of work with 10 of us. (I'm just wrapping up a trip to Crystal River, FL and DisneyWorld for all 10 of us - leaving on Monday, and that was a lot of work). Worth every minute of my time!

I don't think a hotel( or most businesses) take broadcast emails seriously. I have had better luck with personalized faxes.

I around that by setting up a simple mail merge document in Word. I can input the names of the hotels along with the cities and dates in a data file. That info is merged into a master document and I get personalized faxes for each property.

Dick,

I am proficient in Word, so that wouldn't be a problem for me. My biggest concern about faxing is the cost. I know, paying for 10 people visiting Italy for two weeks is molto caro, but I try to save money wherever I can.


I have sent faxes prior to taking our two trips to Italy, and they certainly work out very well. It is expensive to fax a large number of hotels.

You might be surpised at how inexpensive international calls have become.

My carrier charges me 5.9 cents a min with a 30 sec min to Italy. I can send about 25 faxes to Italy for less than a buck.

If hotels didn't want e-mail traffic then they wouldn't publish e-mail addresses IMO.

In terms of June 2006, it does not hurt to ask about rates. If they do respond they will either quote a rate or tell you when they CAN quote you a rate...this has been my exprience in the past.

kane,

I am interested in your trip, since our little group of five couples has traveled together several times.

I agree that it's lots more work that a trip for two people, but to us it has been so worth it. We just have a good time, laugh a lot, and experience so many &quot;wow&quot; moments.

You will read here plenty of scary stories about traveling with friends and relatives, but in our case these horrors haven't happened.

We are a pretty easy-going group, good friends for years, and everybody seems to be at his best when we are in Europe.

And there are advantages, too. We have found that hiring a van so that the whole group can go together on day trips is usually affordable if not less expensive that group tours or public transportation.

Anyway, I'll be interested in keeping up with your plans and experiences!

Good luck, and have fun.

Byrd

Even if you place the phone call to inquire about availability, many hotels still require you to send an email as part of the booking/confirmation process.

My gut reaction to kane's mass mailing is don't do it, unless all the hotels on your list are rock-bottom budget operations that lack any charm and are desperate for your tourist dollar (good luck finding that in June in Italy). Any self-respecting reservation agent or hotel owner will most likely laugh at such an email and put yours at the bottom of the list or worse, throw it away. No business enjoys the perception of &quot;feeling&quot; bullied by a customer who's looking for the cheapest option.

With smart, sufficient research, I don't understand why you haven't reduced this list to five or six places. This, I think, would be a more prudent place to start. Sending individual emails soliciting the lowest possible rate is the least offending, especially if your email is worded well and not too difficult for an Italian to decipher.

Calling (and using carefully chosen words) is the best way to acquire the lowest rate. Italians respond more easily to the actual person. If you don't speak the language or you're uncomfortable making the call for any reason, the method I recommend above should serve you best.

Hi kane,

It is difficult enough to get Italians to respond to email. A mass mailing will, I think, ensure that yours will not be answered.

If you dial 1016868 before 011, you can fax Italy for 10cts/min.

((I))

Hi,

NYCTravelSnob: We will not stay in &quot;rock bottom&quot; priced hotels, definitely moderate-priced hotels, as we have in our past two trips.

Ira: Thanks for the dialing info.

byrd: We are using all public transportation. No on wants to drive.

Dick: I will check the international rates with my phone company (SBC).

Now, after everyone responding to my dilema, I feel you should know just how many hotels are on my &quot;list.&quot; Please remember, this has been cut down once, and I am willing to cut again. BTY, if anyone is willing to actually look it over, it is on Excel and I can e-mail it to you.

Rome: 23
Capri: 12
Sorrento: 18
Florence: 20
Venice: 24

Oh boy, I can just hear you guys now!

I have had the experience and have used individual emails. Your list is very long but, if you can't reduce the numbers then start the process to each hotel or wait until the fall and start then?

Oh boy is right! SURELY you can pare that list down by at least half and preferably to about four hotels per location. Have you checked out Trip Advisor? I can't even imagine FINDING that many hotels in one Italian city that would interest me!

Really, kane, you can do better than that. Start by asking for hotel opinions right here!

St.Cirq, Don't be so sure! I have already checked out TripAdvisor, and every other web site that has hotel opinions.

Maybe, just maybe, my criteria doesn't match up with the hotels I have listed, but how do I determine that? I cannot list every hotel on this forum and ask if it fits my criteria.

Perhaps oberost is on the right track. Dig my heels in, and just start contacting the hotels.

I still don't feel like I'm getting anywhere though (right at this moment).

I booked all of our lodging for our June trip via email. Compose a basic message for each city. Then you can easily send a message to each hotel individually by cutting/pasting your message text. I found that many hotels responded within 24 hours, others took a few days. As you receive replies you can note the room rates offered and amenities offered on your spreadsheet. I would seriously consider shortening your list, though. And wait until about 8 months out to send these out. Good luck.

BTW, once I had selected a hotel and notified them that I was accepting their offer, if they wanted a cc I would fax that info to them directly.

It seems like you do have a lot of hotels on your list. In planning a recent trip to London, I started out with 20+ hotels, too (also in a spreadsheet, but as I'm pathetic at Excel, mine was in Word), but one reason was that I couldn't decide which area we wanted to stay in. But once I began calling, I quickly narrowed it down, and ended up only calling 3 places. (I called for London, but I've used emails very successfully for booking hotels in Italy and France.)

I'm really amazed that you came up with that many hotels in each city that are real possibilities for a group of 10. If you haven't already done so, try to limit your geographic locations within each city. Also, be brutal, especially in using the TripAdvisor reviews. Yes, they're just &quot;average joe&quot; comments, but if I came up with a hotel that had 2 or more comments about cleanliness, it came off my list of possibilities. Also, if a hotel didn't have a website where I could see pictures of the rooms and bathrooms, it came off my list too.

I'm happy to look at your spreadsheet, and offer whatever suggestions I can (though I can't help much with Capri or Sorrento, as I'm not familiar with those cities); you can email me at [email protected].

Enjoy planning your trip!

[email protected]

The Excel spreadsheet is on it's way to you.

Thank you.

I would definitely not broadcast. Especially not to small hotels. I think they would be concerned that you are the type of traveller who would change plans for a couple euros, and could leave them with a large number of rooms to fill. You will get better rates and service, I think, if you appear pretty committed to staying with them, and nicely ask about the best possible rate for your big group.

I'd do this even for bigger hotels, but mostly because I think that if people like your inquiry and enjoy dealing with you, they will go out of their way to help you...including with the best possible rates.

I used to work in a commodity business, and the lesson was-- there really isn't such a thing. The personal touch always gives you the edge!

tashak, I agree with you 100% about the personal touch. If anyone reads my style of writing, I tend to be very polite and sincerely appreciative.

The majority of opinions seem to be shaping up like this: Don't send a broadcast message. Reduce the number of hotels in each location.

I can't wait to hear from Lexma90 about my list of hotels.

I'd love to hear an opinions from bobthenavigator, patrick, elaine, rex, and any other seasoned Italy travelers who may have some good advice in the beginning stages of my planning.

I feel the love!

Another &quot;no&quot; to the broadcast vote.

In picking hotels, I use the same research tools you mentioned (primarily this site, trip advisor and venere.com) to figure out best location, ammenities, best bang for the buck, etc. I will end up with a &quot;wish&quot; list of maybe 3-5 places out of my price range where I'd stay in a heartbeat if I found a deal on somebody's website and a &quot;realistic&quot; list of 5-15 hotels (depending on where I'm going). I then get input from the DW and rank the places on both lists. I'll email the top 3 on my realistic list and keep an eye out for bargains on my wish list. If the top 3 choices are taken, I'll go to the next 3, etc. I'm sure you will check each hotel's cancellation policies before committing to any hotel. If one of my wish list places suddenly becomes available (hasn't happened yet...), I can make the switch.

It sounds like you are prepared to stay at the hotel with the lowest rate in each of your destinations and I presume your email is requesting a discount from each hotel's posted rate. If so, I'd email each but keeping track of every response/non-response and following up will be a part-time job for somebody. As others have noted, you'll be too early for some hotels.

Good luck!!

Dave

Dave,

You hit the nail on the head with your comments. What you outlined is exactly what I am trying to accomplish.

Again, as you said, another &quot;no&quot; to the broadcast e-mail.

You guys are the greatest.

How many hotels are we talking about here? Write your generic message in Word &amp; paste it into an email, type in the address and subject line, hit send... and repeat for each individual hotel. How hard is that?

I don't see how this &lt;is a lot of time and work to send each e-mail individually.&gt;

I agree that depending on the size and type of hotel, a telephone call or fax is more effective.

Suze, You must have missed my hotel count: 97! I know, I know, I have been berated already. REDUCE THE LIST.

Also, I had posted earlier about setting up a Word document, copying and pasting, as you recommended. However, 97 e-mails seemed daunting. It's time to start deleting hotels.

I have to jump in on this one! I use email whenever I can with hotels, and it has worked very well. I send individual, very polite messages and have received replies from most of them in Italy and some of them in Paris. (I suspect that if the hotel has no rooms, they just ignore the email, but it is kind of insulting to receive no reply from a valid email address...)
Restaurants are also hit and miss. I've had some success getting reservations this way, which is great to get out of the way before you leave (saves valuable travel time).
I definitely agree that you could probably pare your list down to 5 or 6 hotels in each place. You have plenty of time, and researching hotels is fun!
Good luck!

cybertraveler,

I do like your suggestion about reserving restaurant reservations. We have never made reservations, but I always have a list of preferred restaurants with me. However, we always traveled in April/May when Italy is less crowded. Hmm, maybe I should try to make a few dinner reservations before we leave the U.S.

Looks like you agree with most of the other posters: Individual e-mails or faxes, and, of course, carefully worded, polite requests to the hotels.

Ah, Esprit d'Corps!

Hi. Here is the system my husband and I have set up in planning our last 5 trips to Europe that for us works very nicely.

One thing that we realized was that it's hard to remember the pluses/minuses of all hotels and compare all of them at once, so we devised a &quot;rating system&quot; to do that.

We first do the research and find hotels/B &amp; B's that interest us in a particular location, typically 10-12 of them.

Secondly, we make an Excel spreadsheet with about 10 columns and list each hotel. Then we rate the aspects of the hotel that are most important to us, such as location, niceness of the rooms, property grounds, patio/terrace, ambience, are any meals included, and cost.

Using a 1-10 rating (10 being the best) we look at each property on the internet and rate each category. By the time we total the scores, it clearly indicates to us which are our highest scoring properties. This usually narrows things down to 3 or 4 top choices. We generally then email our top 3, inquiring about availability and price, and make our final choice from there. It also gives you &quot;back up hotels&quot; in case something changes, then you don't have to start all over.

It's too much to email 20+ hotels for each destination-you'll drive yourself crazy and spend months doing it!

Holy Moly! I must have planned my trip to France backwards. First I ran across hotels that sounded unbearably neat, then tailored a driving itinerary that wound around through them. Well, not entirely true for every single place, but...... However, I think the most options I had for any one town (including Paris) was three.

I did use e-mail for every one except one place whose website requested a letter sent by actual mail. Some of them took a couple weeks to respond, but all did. I also attempted to be really polite, used a bit of my limited French and addressed the person by name.