10 basic principles of choosing a hotel abroad

In our time of the well-developed Internet it’s a sin to ignore the possibilities it offers as regard to a hotel choice.

I’m sure most of you will spend few hours at your hotel in Barcelona or Milan. All your time will be devoted to sightseeing. Still nobody wants to return to a dirty third-rate hotel after a day full of pleasant and exciting emotions.

Nowadays articles like “10 rules about…” are very popular. Following this tradition I decided to write 10 small and simple principles that will help you make a correct choice when looking for a hotel.

1. Hotel rating is still very important nowadays.

Regardless of all other rules take into account how many stars a hotel has. That indicates the status of a hotel.

2. Take into account the meal system.

Not all hotels include breakfast. Despite the fact that any typical European hotel offers quite poor breakfast it is still a certain start to your day and saves dozens of euro. As for other meals you will certainly want to have lunch in a good restaurant in the city centre. So, there’s no need to overpay for B&B.

3. Check if a hotel offers in-room amenities.

You will be surprised but in Europe there are still a lot of hotels offering shared amenities.

4. Check what facilities the room offers.

You should check if the room offers such facilities as air-conditioner, fridge, shower or bath.

5. Check what additional facilities the hotel offers.

Check if there is a swimming-pool, gym etc. and if these facilities are fee paying.

6. Location

A hotel’s location plays a key role. Try to get the following information: what district the hotel is located in; the availability of any public transport stops near the hotel (in case you have no car); the availability of parking (if you have a car); good transport connection with all the sights you are going to visit.

7. Check-in and check-out time

Learn more exactly about the possibility to leave your luggage in the hotel after checking-out. It may turn out one of the most important things. You spend plenty of money on your trip abroad and I’m sure you do not want to waste your precious time in the hotel’s lobby.

8. Travel agents

With all due respect to travel agents, it is highly recommended making use of these services only if they offer prices lower than through the Internet. The Internet has grown much these days. And we in our turn have grown too and have enough experience to find the best hotel for our needs and to avoid paying the additional service fee to travel agents.

A number of big and serious web resources with solid technical support have appeared on the Internet lately. These websites are focused on taking care of each customer and they all host dozens of thousands of hotels into their databases. Besides, very often travel agents use their services.

I personally prefer to use the following resource for search, comparing prices and reading travellers’ reviews: http://www.hotelscombined.com/ It’s the biggest website with the best price comparison service. The great advantage of the resource is that it offers the widest choice of hotels and allows you to find information from all most popular travel websites all in one set of search results. Besides the web resource often offers considerable discounts. As for us we were given a 25% discount.

9. Customer reviews are the best indicator

Take into account that with Photoshop you can turn any shabby place into a palace as well as any copywriter can give a beautiful description. But as for customer reviews they are always true on every serious web resource.

If you liked the photos of the hotel, if you examined the first seven items of my article start reading the customer reviews. Pay attention to the things you are most interested in such as location, the room facilities, restrictions, pros and cons.

10. The right choice

From the list of hotels choose a few according to your budget. Then exclude those ones which you do not like and examine the rest ones according to items 1-7.

Mark 2-3 hotels and make the right choice between them. It will be a nice hotel at the best price and located in a nice convenient district and with impressive customer reviews.

Be sure the hotel will not disappoint you.