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.

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?